


Bittersweet Legacy: Book II - Happily Ever After, Part 2

by vatrixsta



Series: Bittersweet Legacy [3]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe, Darkfic, Gen, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-01
Updated: 2009-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-04 01:14:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 74,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vatrixsta/pseuds/vatrixsta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...and on and on and on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bittersweet Legacy: Book II - Happily Ever After, Part 2

Book II, Part 2  
~

Bittersweet Legacy: Thunder -- Shelter From the Storm

~

'Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood   
When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud   
I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form.   
"Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm."

~

Angel sat in the rose garden, next to the little bush Xander had planted for Anya, tasting the air that told him a storm was coming.

The weather fit his mood. Churning, tumultuous, but too angry to let it out until the skies literally screamed with rage. He'd always felt storms were like that. His mother once told him that when it stormed, it meant that God was angry.

((If ever God had a reason to be angry))

His hands shook. His entire body shook, but mostly, it was his hands. He'd been literally trembling from the inside out the moment his memories of those two terrible days spent without a soul came back to him.

Two days. Two goddamn days that burned every good thing in his life to ash. Two days wherein he'd killed another member of his family ((they were all dead so long ago, why did I let myself have new family to kill?)), physically and emotionally devastated his life's only love, and saw final death come at last to his greatest ((until what I did to Buffy)) sin.

And they said it took centuries to shake the world to its very core. The evil inside him had managed to rock the foundation of his world off its axis in two short days.

"You've been out here so long, you're starting to collect dust. Don't make us cart you off to a museum where they =like= old things to collect dust."

Flinching, Angel stood and stepped away from Anya's bush. Xander raised an eyebrow, but took the seat Angel had vacated, reaching a hand out to lightly finger a red, white and silver petal.

Watching the soft, bittersweet smile that curved Xander's lips, Angel felt irrationally guilty. He chastised himself for the emotion. He'd brought a lot of pain to the lives of all the people he cared about, but he hadn't killed Anya. For that, at least, he wasn't responsible.

((Aren't you?)) a voice in his head taunted. ((Didn't the way Buffy killed her, the savagery she used, come from you? You schooled her in cruelty without knowing it. That's talent.))

((At least you've at last got talent fer somethin', boy.))

Eyes shut tightly, Angel desperately chanted in his mind that he had =not= just heard his father's voice. After a few unnecessary (but calming, nonetheless) breaths, Angel opened his eyes again and was immensely relieved to see that Xander was the only other person with him in the garden.

"You don't look so good," Xander said. "You going to hurl?" He thought for a moment. "Can you hurl?"

Angel winced and crossed to the other end of the courtyard. Putting as much distance between Xander and himself as possible seemed like the wisest thing he could do.

"What do you want?" he asked, his voice hoarse. He hadn't spoken much over the last week.

"Just checking up," Xander said easily, rising as well. As though he'd read Angel's intent, and sought to do the exact opposite of his wishes, he chose to cross his arms and lean against the wall a couple of feet from the vampire. "Buffy's been worrying about you."

"She shouldn't," Angel said shortly. After everything he'd done, Angel couldn't understand how Buffy managed to still care about him. He was briefly reminded of the look that had crossed her face when he told her he wouldn't be sleeping in their bed.

"What?" she'd asked, her face crumbling. She'd looked like he'd just struck her. Like he had before, because of -- =for= -- Faith. Like he had the first time he'd lost his soul, when he'd thrilled in how hurt and afraid she was of him, of the way her heartbeat tripled with that terror. Like he had not a day before, when he'd tied her to a bed and raped her.

No, he would not allow her to simply invite him back into their bed.

"I think it's best if I sleep in another room," he'd repeated, focusing his gaze at a spot somewhere above her shoulder. He hadn't been able to look into her eyes since the moment he'd remembered it all and forcibly pulled his body from the sheltering comfort of hers.

"But," she'd said, then stopped. It was as though she'd forgotten how to speak. The words just dried up in her mouth, and he'd been so grateful at the time, because it afforded him the opportunity to slip away from the inevitable confrontation.

He felt as though he'd been avoiding her ever since. For a week he'd managed to avoid having it out with her. Buffy was patient, and he was sure that in her mind, giving him time to reconcile his thoughts would eventually lead him back to her. But even Buffy had her limits, and a week with barely any contact, a week of nothing but silence from him, he knew, was about to take its toll.

He could smell the storm approaching.

((And what do you plan to do about it, lad? Time was, ya would've curled up into a bottle or a whore until the storm passed.))

His father's voice had never really left his head. When he'd been human, the old man had been a constant presence in his life, pushing, pleading, disapproving, trying the best he knew how to mold the lush he'd been given into a man. Liam had resented him for it. Angelus had killed him for it. Angel would sell his soul for five minutes to beg his forgiveness for it all.

Sometimes, when he killed (back when he'd done that sort of thing for fun), it was his father's voice he heard echoing inside his head, emptied of everything but the ceaseless need to decimate what stood in his path. His father, who would never approve of him, never forgive him, never love him.

Every time he hurt Buffy, he thought of his father. Once, he'd believed with a boy's innocence he'd thought long lost to him, that by finding Buffy, by making her happy, he might finally bring pride to his father's memory. That dream had faded, like all the rest, with memories returned to him before a side-trip to hell and he'd suffered so many crushing blows that the loss of such an old fancy seemed to pale in comparison.

One thing he now knew for certain: the other blows surely seemed to pale in comparison to this -- abomination of love -- he had committed against Buffy. He felt like the culmination of every hateful word, every dashed dream his father had ever had for him. His father had always made him feel like a worthless bastard, but now, with all the pain he'd accumulated over his long, long life, he finally had to consider the possibility that he simply =was= a worthless bastard.

How else could he account for the memories he held in his mind? The look on Buffy's face, the way her skin had torn beneath his hands and his fangs, the way he'd made her bleed as he pounded her into the mattress. There was a visceral thrill, an echo of the demon's rapture at possessing her so totally, that remained with the memory. His soul's horror was nearly overshadowed by the demon's pleasure, and because both entities shared his skin, he felt like the worst kind of monster.

Why did Buffy still care?

"Because she loves you, man," Xander said, and Angel realized he must have asked the question aloud. "Hell if I can figure out why. You haven't bothered to apologize. Of course, apologizing requires speech, and you're not exactly Joe Small Talk lately."

"Apologize," Angel said bitterly, testing the feel of the word in his mouth. How did he begin to apologize to her? He was reminded of Faith. He'd understood her pain at the time, but right that second, he felt as though he were living inside her skin.

((Buffy, I'm sorry I fucked you until you bled, then lapped up your blood like cream. I'm also sorry I couldn't leave it at that. I'm really sorry I kept waking you up to do it all over again. I'm sorry I went through my mental Rolodex of ways to torture a woman and applied each and every one to you. I'm sorry I have a mental Rolodex. I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough to stay away from you in the first place, and I'm sorry you had to love a worthless bastard like me. I'm sorry I couldn't be the man my father wanted me to be; I'm sorry I couldn't be that for you.

Hey, Cordelia? Sorry I killed Gunn. I'm sorry you've lost another man you never really had a chance to know. I'm sorry I've hurt you again so deeply. I'm sorry I didn't let you all stay fired. Gunn, wherever you are, I'm sorry you had the misfortune to meet me. I'm sorry I didn't leave you alone like you asked. I'm sorry I tried to help. I'm sorry I tried to be something I'm not.

Dru, I'm sorry for stalking you and killing everyone you ever loved. I'm sorry I made you believe your gift was a curse, and I'm sorry I drove you insane, then turned you, so that your torment would be eternal. And I'm really sorry it was Spike who staked you, when it was only ever my responsibility. I'm sorry there was never a chance to save you.))

"Buffy wants you to come have dinner with us," Xander said, breaking into his thoughts again.

"No," Angel said automatically.

"She said that if you don't show, she'll take it to mean you aren't sorry and that you obviously don't love her anymore." Xander winced as he said it. "Harsh, I know, but she made me say it. She's got stuff on me. Very embarrassing."

"Get out of my way," Angel muttered.

Xander looked around for a moment. "Uh, not in your way over here."

((I was never in your way, boy.))

Angel flinched, then focused on Xander, a good three feet away from him, and in no way blocking his exit. Forcing a breath through his dead, aching lungs, Angel stepped away from the garden toward the hotel.

"Tell her I'll be there," he said quietly as he disappeared inside.

~

And if I pass this way again, you can rest assured  
I'll always do my best for her, on that I give my word   
In a world of steel-eyed death, and men who are fighting to be warm.   
"Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm."

~

"Okay, we have to get Angel back to normal NOW, because we're all going to die of some horrible food poisoning disease if we have to eat your cooking for another night," Cordelia declared.

Willow blew the hair out of her eyes with an impatient breath, glaring at Cordelia all the while.

"Cordelia, if you don't like it, you don't have to eat it," she snapped.

The two women were alone in the Hyperion's kitchen. Willow had been working nonstop on cooking something edible for the peacemaking dinner Buffy had planned. Chicken was supposed to be relatively easy to make but for some reason, Willow's always came out dry and tasteless. She was tempted to use magic, but it had only been a week since she'd performed the Soul Blessing and she was still drained. Tara was the one who'd always cautioned her about overdoing it.

While holding Angel's soul inside her body, Willow had used reserves she hadn't been aware she had. It was kind of neat, knowing that she'd held another person's essence inside her skin. Not to mention incredibly impressive, on a woohoo-look-at-me-I'm-a-real-witch scale. She'd never felt anything that powerful before, and she and Tara had been working on some pretty deep magic.

Thoughts of Tara no longer conjured the same bone-deep sorrow Willow had felt a few short weeks ago. For some reason, giving Angel his soul back -- =really= back, and not in the flimsy, no guarantee used car way the gypsy curse had done -- made her feel worthy of still being alive.

Now, if only she could master a simple dinner . . .

"We should just order pizza," Cordelia declared, sniffing delicately at the dubious odors coming from the stove. Willow admitted -- if only to herself -- that she didn't relish the idea of consuming the food she'd prepared.

"Angel doesn't like pizza," Willow argued.

"Angel doesn't like anything without a red and white cell count," Cordelia countered. "Besides, he's in full broody guy mode -- with reason, I might add -- and nothing you serve him is going to matter. He's only coming tonight in the hopes that Buffy and I will beat up on him."

"What are you talking about?" Willow asked, genuinely puzzled.

Cordelia sighed deeply. "He wants us to punish him. Not in a whips and chains S&amp;M club way, but . . . he wants us to let loose on him. He thinks that by avoiding us, by giving us some time, it'll unleash our righteous anger or whatever on him. He's a guilt whore."

Before Willow could formulate an answer of any kind, Wesley came through the revolving kitchen doors.

"What smells so . . . ?" He wrinkled up his nose and swallowed deeply. "Delicious," he finished, looking a little greener than he had when he entered the room.

"Pizza," Willow sighed in defeat. "Cordy, could you go take orders?"

"Sure," the brunette agreed easily, taking obvious delight in escaping the kitchen.

"Help me dispose of the toxic waste?" Willow asked Wesley hopefully, indicating the pan of what had once been perfectly innocent chicken and vegetables.

"Of course," Wesley agreed, moving to the sink. He filled a dishpan with suds. "Sorry Angel hasn't invested in a dishwasher."

"It's okay," Willow assured him, scraping the chicken down the garbage disposal while Wesley got some of the bowls she'd used soaking. "I actually sort of like this. Washing dishes with family brings everybody closer. My mom always moved around kind of manic-y and had the dinner dishes cleaned up almost before we were done eating. I like taking time with it and I just realized what a huge geek I am so I'll shut up now."

"Not at all," Wesley hastened to assure her. "I rather . . .I rather like the idea of quality time over domestic tasks," he confessed. "In my house there was always a domestic staff, and Father felt the less time spent around his bumbling son, the better." He said it in a self-deprecating tone of voice, but she felt how much it hurt him.

Sharing a sad smile, they worked side by side, chatting companionably until the dishes were washed and air-drying.

"Well, thanks for your help," Willow began as she inched one of her big yellow rubber gloves off.

"I think I'm in love with you," Wesley blurted out.

Eyes bugging slightly, Willow paused, gloves dripping soapy water onto the floor. "P-pardon?" she sputtered.

"I'm sorry," Wesley immediately apologized. "You don't want to hear that. It's too soon, and you're . . . well, you're . . . "

"I'm what?" Willow asked, sounding a little indignant.

"I mean, I thought that you were . . . you know."

"Gay?"

"Yes."

"I was. I mean, I am. I mean . . . I don't know." Willow made an impatient sound in the back of her throat. "Why does everybody keep focusing on that?!"

"No offense intended," Wesley began, "but it's sort of a main point if a member of the opposite sex is considering the idea that he might be madly in love with you."

"You went from plain old in love with me, to madly in love with me in less than a minute," Willow pointed out. "Which is it?"

"I'm leaning toward madly, actually," Wesley confessed. "More and more the longer I see the way your eyes actually seem to sparkle when you're nervous."

"I'm not nervous," Willow denied nervously.

"You're not ready for this," Wesley said. "I'm a fool for bringing it--"

"I am ready," Willow said suddenly. "I mean, what almost happened before . . .that was about stress and attraction . . . it was chemical."

"Definitely chemical," Wesley agreed.

"But this . . . this is thought out. And . . . you're nice. And I like you. And I'm somehow doubting you'd be put off by a woman who likes to break into government secured websites and practice turning a rat back into a girl in her spare time."

"Those are two very attractive attributes of yours, actually," Wesley agreed.

"Kiss me," Willow ordered.

"What?"

"Now," Willow snapped.

He pulled her into his arms and ignored the wetness coating the back of his shirt when she clutched at his shoulders. What was a little dampness in the grand scheme of things?

"Oh dear," Wesley said gravely as their lips parted slightly.

"Why 'oh dear'?" Willow asked warily.

"I rather think we're going to end up on the table again," Wesley declared.

Willow grinned. "I really hope Xander doesn't get hungry in the next few minutes."

"Few minutes?" Wesley spluttered indignantly. "My dear girl, I'll have you know we will be on that table for a =lot= longer than a few--"

With a wicked grin, Willow pulled his mouth back down to hers.

~

Not a word was spoke between us, there was little risk involved   
Everything up to that point had been left unresolved.   
Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm.   
"Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm."

~

"Life sucks," Faith muttered as she took out all the frustration racing through her body on the poor, defenseless punching bag hanging in the Hyperion's basement.

"Tell me somethin' I don't know, darlin'."

Faith froze mid-punch, and let out a grunt as the bag, unprepared for her inactivity, hit her heavily in the solar plexus. She stumbled backwards, and only managed to keep off her ass by the strong hand that steadied her arm.

As though she'd been burnt, Faith leapt away from the contact and spun on her heel to glare at Lindsey McDonald.

B had been on a 'forgive and forget' kick since Angel got his marbles back. Lindsey McDonald was the most obvious manifestation of it. When he'd confessed he didn't have anywhere to go, Buffy had offered him a room in what Faith had privately and publicly begun to call Lost Souls Headquarters. Lindsey had been resistant to the idea at first, but once Buffy made it clear she wasn't taking no for an answer, he'd agreed.

When Faith had questioned her fellow Slayer about what Faith had then termed 'complete mental breakdown', Buffy had explained her reasoning.

"One," Buffy had said crisply, "if he's really on the level, we could use his help. Two, if he's taking us for a ride, I'd rather have him where I can see him than working in a little hole with new fun ways to destroy the people I love. Three . . ." And Buffy had smirked. "You need to get laid, Faith, and I've seen the way he looks at you."

"What do you want?" Faith asked Lindsey briskly, forcing her mind back to the present.

He raised an eyebrow. "You've been down here for a couple of hours. Mr. Wyndam-Pryce asked me to come down and check on you."

Narrowing her eyes, Faith ripped the tape she'd had on her wrists with her teeth, feeling another trip into the recent past coming on. ((Fucking Wesley and his fucking overblown sense of responsibility. Or maybe he's just a matchmaker at heart. Either way, this whole swearing off killing people thing isn't going to work out, 'cause the English dude is =so= dead.))

Faith had confided in her former Watcher over the past week. She'd confessed the aspect of her prophetic dreams she'd kept such a closely guarded secret before. Told Wesley of the man with the bright blue eyes who made her feel like she'd come home. Wes had listened patiently, 'hmming' and 'ahhing' at the right moments. His entire posture had seemed to shout 'why are you telling me this, exactly?' even though he'd never lost his polite countenance.

When Faith told him it was Lindsey McDonald in her dream, Wesley had nearly fallen off the couch.

After his initial shock had faded, however, Wesley had been surprisingly encouraging.

"The man did save your life," Wes had pointed out. "And it would appear he's trying to change his life, just as you are."

"He's evil and he's a lawyer," Faith had maintained, "and I don't even know which is worse."

"I was under the impression they were actually one and the same," Wesley had joked.

"Stop trying to be funny, Four Eyes, it doesn't work for you," Faith had snapped. "I can't be in love with something evil. Don't you get it? I had my fuckfest with the dark side of the force. This is supposed to be Faith: The Next Generation, preferably evil-free except for the ugly things she fights."

"Mr. McDonald is not evil," Wesley had cautioned her. "No more evil than you were. Granted, you both fell, nearly too far to recover, I dare say. But you =did= recover. And if we are correct in assuming that your dreams are as accurate as Buffy's have been in the past . . ."

"You all right in there?" Lindsey asked softly.

Startling, Faith forced herself to focus on the present. Lindsey was looking at her with concern in his eyes. They were like chips of blue ice, and she had the ridiculous desire to thaw them until she found his soul again.

She remembered how dark it had been for her, how lost she'd felt. Her soul had been nearly black by the time she fought her way through the fog. If it hadn't been for Angel, she might never have gotten it clean again. It was still a little dingy around the edges. Did Lindsey still have a soul? Was it just in need of a little Windex and someone else to wash it?

What the hell was she thinking? Even if that were the case, she wasn't a saver of souls. She hadn't been able to save herself without a hell of a lot of assistance. Lindsey was better off looking to one of Buffy's little Scoobies for help. Maybe once Angel got off his walkabout kick he'd be able to do Law Boy some good.

"Five by five," Faith forced herself to answer. "Tell Wes I'll get something to eat after I finish my workout."

"They got Angel to agree to dinner," Lindsey said with a sardonic smile. "Your fellow Slayer's been driving the whole house insane with demands to make it perfect. She wants everybody in this mausoleum presentable to welcome the prodigal back."

"I wouldn't talk about Angel like that if I were you," Faith said menacingly. Without thinking, she stalked right up to Lindsey and got in his face. "Especially not around me and B. We sort of owe him our lives."

Lindsey stared at her for a moment, then he lifted his hand to the side of her face. Faith was so shocked by the contact that she didn't pull away as he tucked a piece of hair that had fallen loose from her ponytail behind her ear.

"Your eyes turn the color of extravagantly overpriced dark chocolate when you're angry," he confided quietly.

Swallowing deeply, Faith stepped away from him. "Leave me alone," she said in a shaky voice.

Shrugging, Lindsey backed away. "Whatever you want, darlin'," he promised softly as he turned and jogged back up the stairs.

A not unpleasant shiver ran through Faith's body from head to toe, causing her to spin around and take out the punching bag with a flying kick. It sailed through the air and cracked open against the boiler.

"Someone's got a cru-ush," an obnoxious, accented voice singsonged from one of the basement's darkest corners.

"Where did you come from?" Faith muttered as Spike came into view.

"Been around," he answered, lighting up a cigarette. "This here's the only bleedin' spot in this whole nuthouse nobody finds me takin' a drag."

"I can't believe I didn't know you were here," Faith said, feeling disgusted with herself.

"You're slipping all right," Spike agreed.

"Or maybe I just don't sense you as much of a threat, Cujo," she added.

"You wanna know what I sense?" Spike asked, ignoring her.

"Not really."

"I sense that you're all hot and bothered for the rodeo reject up there," Spike pronounced.

"Not in this lifetime," Faith insisted, her mind instantly betraying her as it called up perfect recollection of the way Lindsey had looked in the faded blue jeans he'd worn. They'd hugged his hips just so, and gave her the view of what might just have been the finest ass she'd ever seen up close . . .

"Oh, yeah," Spike groaned, "you're panting for him."

"Doesn't matter," Faith snapped. "It's not gonna happen."

"Yeah, well, you don't let off some of that tension, you're gonna explode."

"What makes you the expert?"

"Just so happens I've got a bit 'o tension boiling up inside of me, too," Spike answered. "From a coupla' different sources." He moved in closer to her until she could feel his nonexistent breath on the back of her neck. "We put our heads together, and maybe a few other pertinent parts, we might just be able to solve our mutual problem."

"Let me get this straight," Faith muttered, turning to face him as she put a few feet between them, her tone disbelieving. "You think that just because some lawyer's got me a little hot under the collar, I'm gonna chuck my sense of self-respect and let you fuck me just to let off a little steam?"

Spike's reply was an incredibly articulate shrug. Faith thought it meant 'Well, yeah'.

"Works for me," she muttered as she grabbed the back of his head and proceeded to maul his mouth.

~

I was burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail,   
Poisoned in the bushes an' blown out on the trail,   
Hunted like a crocodile, ravaged in the corn.   
"Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm."

~

It was more like combat, than sex.

Of course, both had had their fair share of both.

Spike had spent thousands of nights with Drusilla. Some had been tender, but his baby's darker predilections had yielded more than a few howling, bloody, ecstatic bouts. His mind shied away from thoughts of Drusilla. That was half the reason he was about to screw the =other= Slayer six ways from Sunday. He'd killed the woman who'd gifted him with immortal life, to save the life of the human girl he wanted to love more than anything else, with the possible exception of the =other= no longer human girl he wanted to love more than anything else.

Neither of them would ever want him, though. The blonde was so full of his idiot GrandSire that she'd never give him the time of day. The redhead was too innocent, too firm in her right and wrong view of the world to ever get muddled in such petty ambiguities as loving a demon. Wolf boy and the cute, stuttering witch aside, Spike was pretty sure she wanted someone normal to share her bed -- even if they were only normal according to the lunar cycle.

Hearts and flowers nonsense aside -- Spike mostly just needed a really satisfying screw. In the worst way. And a flexible, confused, horny Slayer was a gift horse if ever he'd met one. Better, even, than a three hundred-pound woman lying dead in the street, just begging to be fed off.

For her part, Faith was desperately trying not to think. Her mind kept trying to drag up memories of other one-night stands, of nights spent in the company of men she'd shuddered to look at in the harsh light of day.

Fortunately, she would never see this guy in the daylight.

It wasn't that he was so bad to look at, she conceded as his mouth molested hers. And he was a =damn= good kisser. It was that she'd sort of sworn off evil things, and neutered though he may be, he was about as evil as evil things came.

Wasn't that why she was doing this? To avoid messy, emotional entanglements with =another= evil guy? At least with Spike, what she saw was what she got. He was evil. He made no qualms about it. He put himself out there and didn't pretend to be something he wasn't. Lindsey McDonald was talking about changing his life. Lindsey McDonald made appearances in her dreams and begged her to save him when she couldn't even save herself. Lindsey McDonald had eyes that reminded her of places she'd never been, and things she'd never felt.

Lindsey made her want things she had no business wanting, and he made her want to trust in people the way she'd learned the hard way she wasn't allowed to. Things didn't go well for Faith, especially not when love was thrown into the mix. No, it was better to surround herself with almost-friends, like she had here. It was better to rip Spike's coat from his body and throw it to the ground, ignoring his protests that the leather would wrinkle.

And, God help her, it was so much easier to strip him naked and lose herself in the cool, lithe perfection of his body.

His hands were pretty busy, too. They had her naked as jaybird in fifteen seconds flat. That had to be a record of some kind. She hadn't even felt him work the clasp on her bra. His mouth was everywhere, cool and soothing and arousing and rough. Faith liked it rough. When it was rough, it was easier to compartmentalize. This was about release and pleasure and distraction. No entanglements, no awkward silences later, and definitely no morally ambiguous lawyers that made her wonder just how adept he was at using one hand . . .

Spike had her flat on her back before she had a chance to blink, and the position didn't suit her at all. She dug her nails into his shoulders for purchase, and rolled them until she straddled his waist. Impaling herself on his rock hard cock before he had a chance to roll her beneath him again, she let out a hiss of satisfaction. It had been a =long= fucking year in prison.

The vampire beneath her was unwilling to let her win their war so easily. His hands clutched at her thighs tightly, seating her on him firmly as he came up on his knees. Unless she was willing to let him slip out of her body, she had no choice but to wrap her legs around his hips and hang on for dear life. Her arms hung onto his neck for good measure, and he fell forward, landing heavily on top of her. She groaned, but Faith had always liked the pain, and she raked her nails down the back of his neck, over his shoulder blades, in response.

He pounded into her with force and speed Faith had never experienced before. Her lovers, though many and varied, had all been human ((no wonder B could never get enough of Angel)) and this demon was setting her on fire with his cool, hard flesh.

One of his hands dug into her hair, tugging at it as they fucked wildly. He was giving her such a good ride, she was just fine with letting him be on top. Her fingers gripped his back in spasms as the raw pain/pleasure tore through her body. She bit into his shoulder with blunt teeth, muffling the scream that would not be contained in her throat. He snarled, and did nothing to silence his own cries. Instead, he threw his head back and roared with satisfaction.

As he collapsed on top of her, Faith restrained the urge to curse. Lindsey's face still floated in her mind.

She didn't know what it meant, but she was pretty sure it implied that she was fucked. And =definitely= not in the good way.

~

Suddenly I turned around and she was standin' there   
With silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair.   
She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns.   
"Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm."

~

Willow giggled as she brought her still wet and soapy gloved hands away from Wesley's hair. The brown locks were sticking up straighter than Angel's and she quickly dispatched of the yellow bits of rubber and brought her dry hands to his hair. She smoothed down the rough edges until he looked moderately respectable again; then she yanked his head down so she could kiss him some more.

It felt amazing, being close to someone again. They'd gotten much closer than this, before. The assignation they'd narrowly avoided on the very kitchen table he was lifting her onto now seemed destined to occur.

She didn't really mind so much.

There was confusion rattling around everywhere in her brain. It seemed there'd been nothing but confusion over the past two years. When she'd fallen in love with Tara, it had felt like a whole side to herself she'd never known existed had emerged. That awakening, the way Tara had made her feel, had led Willow to believe she was gay. It was a logical conclusion, and one she had been sure was correct.

Given the way Wesley's mouth and hands were making her feel, the way his fingers slipping beneath her peasant top were making her skin tingle, Willow was sure there had been a miscalculation somewhere.

None of it seemed to matter as Wesley kissed her so softly; played with her tongue, coaxed it into his own mouth. Her fingers moved naturally to the buttons on his shirt, and she sighed when she was finally able to press her palms to his warm, bare flesh. He pressed adoring kisses to her cheeks and her jaw before he pulled away just enough to slip her shirt over her head.

Cupping her breasts through the white cotton of her bra, he seemed to realize what was happening between them. He guiltily looked back at the door.

"Do we want to chance it?" he whispered loudly.

Again, Willow giggled. "I think it'll be okay," she whispered back, just as loud. "Cordelia's allergic to housework and she's probably warned everyone I'm in a bad mood after the chicken fiasco." She frowned. "But no chocolate this time. I was rinsing in some unusual places."

He grinned boyishly. "Why, Ms. Rosenberg, I haven't the faintest notion to where you might be referring," he teased.

"Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, you're the one who thought it would be a fun idea to dribble hot fudge . . ." she blushed furiously, "=there= and then we got interrupted before you could . . ." her blush deepened, "clean it up."

"But we won't be interrupted this time," he murmured huskily.

He had the most amazing voice, Willow decided as he bent her back over the table. He seemed to know it, too, because he murmured sweet endearments and dirty promises into her ear as his hands practically dissolved her clothes from her body. There was so much gentleness in him, such an amazing capacity for love, that Willow felt tears spring to her eyes.

She had been lucky in her life. There'd never been a bad apple. Xander, the first boy to capture her heart, had been -- continued to be -- her best friend. They'd been meant to be forever in love, just not in the way people usually took that to mean. Of all the souls who had ever touched her life -- who would touch her life still -- Willow was most thankful for Xander. Everyone should have a Xander.

Oz had been the first man she ever loved, even though he'd been little more than a boy at the time. He'd introduced her to so many things, and he'd done so on her timetable, giving her a first time she still looked back on fondly. He, too, had been a dear friend, and a secret corner of her heart was still looking forward to a trip to Istanbul when she was eighty.

Tara had been the first person Willow had loved as a woman, in full possession of her heart and her senses. The witch who'd thought she was some kind of demon for most of her life had changed Willow in more ways than the obvious. From Willow's deepening proficiency with magic, the control she had now, to her broadened tastes in music, to the little cat Giles had brought back from his trip to Sunnydale, Tara had left her mark on the redhead's soul. Ms. Kitty Fantastico was a balm to Willow's heart, and while it didn't make missing Tara any easier, it certainly eased the sharp pain to see the kitty playfully paw at the bars of Amy's cage.

One thing Willow had never been capable of doing, was shutting off her heart. It loved easily, and it loved often, and it made room for everyone. Over the past few months in Angel's home, it had been making room for Wesley Wyndam-Pryce.

He was gazing down at her now with uncontained adoration, and she gave him a reassuring smile as she pressed her hand against the outside of his hip. He was as pale as Spike, she noted, then blushed. She didn't mean to be having naked thoughts of Spike. It was just that after the big battle, he'd been wounded and she'd seen him without a shirt on . . . and Willow swore she would never tell Wesley that she'd been thinking of Spike naked during the first time that they made love.

Fully back on track, and in the moment, Willow slid a leg around Wesley's lower back and urged him onto the table with her. She worried for a moment about protection, but Wesley had that taken care of.

"Pretty sure of yourself," she noted with a grin as he rolled the condom onto his throbbing erection. She reached out a hand and tickled him at the root, causing him to nearly pop the rubber off his tip.

"Well, after the incident with the chocolate, you know . . . you can never be too prepared--" His words trailed off in a moan as she gave him a firm stroke. She'd always been fascinated by the contrast of warm skin and cool latex. "For any eventuality," he continued, his voice sounding almost drugged.

Shushing him, she placed two fingers to his lips. "Less talking. More kissing," she whispered.

He obliged, and did a lot more than kiss her.

Willow felt truly happy for the first time in months.

~

Now there's a wall between us, somethin' there's been lost   
I took too much for granted, got my signals crossed.   
Just to think that it all began on a long-forgotten morn.   
"Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm."

~

Faith was panting, and Spike, though not requiring breath, seemed a little dazed. Five minutes later, and they hadn't moved. Faith was trying to work up the energy to tell him to move the fuck off of her, but she really couldn't be bothered. Her body was satisfied, but her stupid heart and her stupid soul and her stupid mind wouldn't shut the hell up.

That had to be the best fuck of her life, and she =still= couldn't stop thinking about Lindsey McDonald.

Determined to do something -- anything -- to make it stop, she dug her fingers into the hair at the back of Spike's head, and pulled him up to look at her. Maybe he'd kill her, and she'd be done with all of it. Maybe he'd suck Lindsey out of her soul. Maybe it would all just =stop= for a few precious seconds.

"Bite me. Mark me."

He actually looked shocked. "I . . . I can't."

"Look, I want you to do it. I give you permission, make it so, whatever. The chip shouldn't--"

"It's not the chip, love," he whispered hoarsely. "It's the . . . I can't just bloody =mark= you. It's not like lifting your leg and pissing on a hydrant, y'know."

"Could've fooled me. Look, I know you can do it. Buffy's got two holes in the side of her neck even eternal life couldn't heal."

"Yeah, and she got 'em because the rabid animal biting her happened to be the possessive type. He marked her because in his mind, in that moment, she bloody well =belonged= to him. I could mark =Buffy=. Hell, I could mark . . ." He seemed to think better of what he'd been about to say, and simply settled for repeating himself: "I can't mark =you=."

"Right." Faith laughed, the sound a bit unstable. "So basically, you vampires can suck any old gal dry, but if you're gonna stake your claim, she's gotta be something special; gotta be =worth= it."

"Hey, don't go getting all like that--"

"No, it's cool," Faith insisted, shoving him off her so she could jump to her feet. She was dressed just enough to leave in seconds. "Not like I've ever been worth anything to anybody before. You'd think I'd be used to it by now."

"It's been nearly two centuries for me, and I'm still not used to it," he confided quietly.

"Y'know, this is gettin' way too weird for me. I don't think my mental stability can handle identifying with a soulless vampire."

"Do what you gotta do, love," he said softly, withdrawing a cigarette from his abandoned coat. He lit it while he spoke. "I sure as fuck already got enough squishy feelings to deal with, without addin' yours to the soddin' pile."

"Story of my life," Faith said dully as she trudged up the basement stairs, feeling more depressed than she had before her workout. "Didn't think that was physically possible," she muttered as she tried to make herself look like less of a slut.

Her attempts were unsuccessful.

"Somethin' I can do for you, darlin'?"

"Shit," Faith hissed, jumping slightly. "Damn it, don't do that."

Lindsey raised his eyebrows at her. "Sorry. Actually, that's not accurate. I'm more surprised than sorry. Here I was, thinkin' it was impossible for a mere mortal such as myself to sneak up on a Slayer."

"Yeah, well, this Slayer's got a lot on her mind." Faith stared into his eyes for a few moments before she realized what she was doing. "What do you want?"

"The actress is taking pizza orders," he said helpfully. "I told her I'd take yours, considering I knew where to find you."

Faith just stared at him. Pizza. He was asking her about fucking =pizza=? Abruptly, she turned from him and stalked down the hall, muttering quietly to herself.

"Strange girl," Lindsey murmured, unable to keep himself from noticing the way her hips moved as she walked away.

~

Well, the deputy walks on hard nails and the preacher rides a mount   
But nothing really matters much, it's doom alone that counts   
And the one-eyed undertaker, he blows a futile horn.   
"Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm."

~

"Where the hell are the pizzas?!"

"They're probably still loading them into the arc at the pizza place. I hate to be the one always reminding you of this stuff, Cordy, but you only got off the phone with Greco's twenty minutes ago, and if you haven't noticed, the neighbors are gathering up animals two by two."

"It's just a summer shower," Cordelia sniffed haughtily.

Xander stared at her, then stared out the window that, for once during the early evening, wasn't covered with a thick black curtain. If the sun were capable of peeking out of the torrential downpour, it would be deadly to three of the house's occupants. The fact that Cordelia was clearly blind didn't bother Xander nearly as much as the reason =why= she was slipping into Uber Bitch mode.

Cordelia had an amazing capacity to care, and to love. In fact, it was so amazing, so grand, that it took too much from her to give it. Her bitchiness was an act of self-preservation when the world was threatening to hurt her. It was a facet of her personality Xander hadn't understood when they'd been dating, but the longer he got to know her as a friend -- a real friend, finally and at last -- the more he understood the first girl he'd ever fallen in love with.

There was a kitten buried deep down beneath that rabid tiger's exterior.

"Giles!" Cordelia screeched, hurrying over to the startled Watcher at the dining room table. "Remember what a disaster a formal dinner was last time? Why are you setting the table? Are you completely mental? I thought Watchers had to have an OUNCE of common sense!"

Deep, deep, =deep= down.

"Yes," Giles said stiffly, "perhaps I'll just gather all the formal dining wear up and toss it out into the monsoon outside."

"It's just a light shower!" Cordelia cried.

"Okay, time out," Xander said, taking Cordelia by the arm. "The table looks great, G-man," he added over his shoulder.

Giles rolled his eyes. "It's hard to tell which one of them is worse," he muttered to himself as he gathered the plates together to take into the other room. God forbid they eat at a table like civilized human beings . . .

"Want to tell me what's going on, Princess?" Xander asked once he'd herded Cordelia to a private corner of the hotel, near a window.

"Don't call me that," she snapped. "I'm not your princess. I'm =nobody's= princess."

"Oka-a-a-ay," Xander said slowly.

Cordelia's big brown eyes became liquid, and her lower lip trembled. The sight temporarily paralyzed Xander. Queen C did =not= show human emotion. His Cordy ((did I just think of her as mine? so not thinking about =that= at the moment)) did, though. She had on a number of occasions with him, back when they'd been dating, and since he'd been at the Hyperion. Cordy was more human here, around people she trusted, the way she'd been with him once upon a time when they'd been alone together.

"I'm sorry," Cordelia whispered. "Someone . . . Doyle -- I told you about Doyle, right? -- he used to call me that. Princess."

"You are a princess," Xander said before he could stop himself.

Cordelia smiled sadly. "No, I'm not," she said quietly. "But it really means a lot that you think so."

There was so much not okay with her, but before Xander could probe further, Willow and Wesley came into the dining room. Xander narrowed his eyes. They were . . . rumpled. And they looked . . . satisfied.

((oh, ewwww))

"Is everything ready?" Buffy asked, breezing into the room. She wore a tight black tank top and a flowing dark purple velvet skirt that sort of looked black when the light hit it in just the right way. The material had always fascinated Xander; Anya had been fond of it.

Anya had looked beautiful in it, he corrected himself. She hadn't cared for the material, but he'd loved her in it, and because she loved to make him happy, to make him proud to be with her, she draped the soft, clingy material over her body every chance she got.

He'd never gotten the chance to tell her that he'd be proud to have her by his side if she'd worn a sackcloth. He regretted that, but as time went by, he was beginning to let it go.

That didn't make him miss her any less.

"It's freezing cold outside and you're wearing a tank top," Cordelia groused, half-glaring at Buffy.

"Vampire perk," Buffy threw out casually. "I repeat again, due to lack of response the first time -- is everything ready?"

"The pizzas aren't here yet," Cordelia said.

"Pizzas?!" Buffy shrieked. Xander winced at the shrillness. "Willow was supposed to make chicken. There was going to be chicken. How are we supposed to have a peaceful dinner without chicken?!"

"We're not going to have a peaceful =anything= until you stop shrieking like a banshee," Cordelia snapped.

"I had Cordy order you a barbecue chicken pizza," Xander said smoothly, stepping between the two women, who looked ten seconds away from ripping each other limb from limb. And considering Buffy was a Slayer Vamp, Cordelia didn't stand much of a chance; and Xander was really starting to get used to having Cordy around again.

Buffy still looked ready to snap. Her gaze darted around the room, before she took a deep, unnecessary -- yet apparently calming nonetheless -- breath.

"I will be in my room," Buffy announced stiffly.

"Good riddance," Cordelia muttered.

There was a loud banging sound from the lobby.

"Pizza's here," Willow chirped, trying to inject some cheer into the room.

Her attempt was a complete failure. But, Xander noticed, Wesley still seemed to be making goo-goo eyes at her anyway. He narrowed his eyes. There was something about the mere =idea= of his oldest friend boffing the formerly stuck-up British guy that gave Xander hives. The fact that it seemed to be happening in living color was making his skin crawl.

Rain made everybody so =weird=.

~

I've heard newborn babies wailin' like a mournin' dove   
And old men with broken teeth stranded without love.   
Do I understand your question, man, is it hopeless and forlorn?   
"Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm."

~

Angel, Buffy decided, had finally perfected the fine art of being in the same room with her without actually having to talk to or even look at her for more than five seconds at a time. And for the past half an hour, he hadn't even managed five seconds.

Feeling rejected by her mate, Buffy had been trying to turn her attention to the other occupants of the room. Her predator's senses had been picking up on things she'd =never= noticed before as a plain old Slayer, and the temptation to gag was growing stronger every moment.

Spike smelled like Faith. Faith smelled like green apples. Which led Buffy to believe that Faith had been the only one of the two of them with enough sense to shower. She was torn between twisted fascination ((WHAT could they POSSIBLY see in each other?!)) and abject horror ((It's SPIKE!)) at the thought of her sister Slayer and the soulless demon having any kind of intimate relationship.

There was a weird vibe going on between Wes and Will. Wes and Will. Buffy tested the names out in her mind for a moment. It sounded like a vaudeville ((God, Angel was really opening up about his past before everything went bad. Never would have pictured him sitting in the back of a theater watching vaudeville)) act from the 30s. They both smelled like Willow's honeysuckle shampoo ((curiouser and curiouser)) and they kept glancing at each other when they thought no one was looking.

Lindsey McDonald was sitting quietly in the corner, looking for all the world like he wanted to be swallowed up into the earth. Buffy could relate. She hadn't been too comfortable around people just after she'd regained her soul, and in a less dramatic, sorcerer sort of way, that's exactly what Lindsey had just gone through. Only he'd willingly taken possession of the soul he hadn't really lost in the first place. He'd just misplaced it.

Buffy only hoped that her desperation to believe that he'd changed wasn't clouding her better judgment. Giles had alluded to that very fact when she'd announced her decision to let Lindsey stay with them.

Speaking of, Buffy's mentor was reading through that diary ((why is he so fascinated with some dead Chinese dude?)) again. "There's a wealth of information to be gained within this text. I daresay it's the most pivotal discovery we've made to learning the true nature of the Slayer's destiny and what role vampires are to play in it since Angel brought me the Codex." Buffy mentally rolled her eyes at the remembered conversation.

Cordelia looked like she wanted to slit her wrists, just as she had all through dinner, and Xander was half-heartedly patting her shoulder while he glared daggers at Willow and Wesley. ((What the hell is THAT all about?))

Shaking herself out of her survey of the room, Buffy realized that the story Willow had been telling moments before had ended, and an extremely awkward silence had stretched over them all. Floundering for something to say, Buffy caught a glance at Spike out of the corner of her eye, and promptly forgot about trying to liven up the room.

The blond vampire looked like he was about to =murder= Wesley. In fact, Buffy was positive that, had it not been for the chip, Wes would have been an afterthought by now.

Could Spike smell something she couldn't? He =was= a lot closer to Willow than she was, and Buffy was pretty sure that having raging jealousy on his side might make his senses a little keener.

If Angel had been fooling around with someone else, Buffy was sure she'd be able to feel it, let alone smell it. That was a moot point, anyway, because if he ever so much as =looked= at another girl, she would rip his lungs out. He might not need them anymore, but she was pretty sure it would hurt like hell. Besides, she was sure it wouldn't come to that. She would make Angel so blissfully happy that he'd never want a Drusilla or a Darla or anyone else.

Assuming that he ever spoke to her again.

Xander took that moment to make sure Buffy wouldn't have to worry about silence for some time to come.

"My God," he groaned, watching as Willow discreetly ran a fingertip down the side of Wesley's hand, "would you two just go get a room already? I know we've started a boarding house here, but there's still like a dozen free ones upstairs."

"I =knew= it!" Spike shouted, leaping to his feet. He was glaring at Wesley murderously again. "You shagged her, didn't you?"

"I beg your pardon," Willow huffed, rising to her feet at the same time Wesley did, "but I don't think it's any of your business =who= shagged me." She looked pointedly between Xander and Spike. "=Either= one of you."

Spike snorted. "Everybody's business is everybody else's business in this loony bin."

"Leave her alone, Fang," Cordelia snapped, jumping into the melee. "Willow's been through a lot, and if she's getting shag-- hey! I don't believe it! Wesley's getting some before me =again=?! What, does he have some kind of Super Fast Acting cologne?!"

"I thought you were gay," Buffy said to Willow helplessly.

Everyone was on their feet now, except for Angel, who looked like he wanted to disappear into the shadows, and Giles, who appeared to =actually= be disappearing out of embarrassment.

"Didn't even realize how nice it was, smellin' the other little witch on you 'til I got a whiff of this wanker," Spike muttered to Willow. "At least the girl gave me some nice happy images."

"He's not a wanker," Faith said, defending her Watcher. "Besides, who even says wanker? God, you've been in America how long and you can't pick up the slang?"

"You didn't seem too concerned about my cultural deficiencies a few hours ago, pet," Spike said smoothly.

"I knew you slept with him," Lindsey said, directing an intense gaze at Faith.

"So what?" Faith asked defensively, giving Lindsey an equally intense stare.

"You slept with Spike?" Cordelia gasped. "That's gotta be the grossest thing I've ever heard!"

"Your boss ate your boyfriend," Spike said nastily. Cordelia looked ready to cry.

"Enough," Angel snarled, batting Spike away from Cordelia with the back of his hand.

"Oh, wow, he =speaks=," Buffy hissed, glaring at Angel.

"You don't have to get nasty," Angel said coldly.

"I think I do," Buffy insisted, "because unless I do, you won't fucking talk to me, or look at me, or TOUCH me!"

"I'm here, aren't I?" he snapped back.

"And you think that's supposed to MEAN something? That it fixes ANYTHING inside of me that's broken? I =need= you. I need you to hold me and tell me that everything's going to be okay."

"I don't know that it is," Angel said quietly.

"Why'd you do it, darlin'?" Lindsey asked Faith curiously.

"Maybe I just needed to get laid," Faith snapped.

Giles sunk further into his chair; buried his nose a little deeper into his book.

"What happened to 'we're going to give it some time, Xan, not rush into anything'?" Xander asked Willow.

"We were," Willow said. "And then . . . there were dishes."

"I once read that suds could be a powerful aphrodisiac," Wesley said unconvincingly.

Xander just stared at him.

"Eww," Cordelia whimpered, still looking shaken from Spike's earlier comment, "you did it in the KITCHEN?! Great. Now I can =never= go in there again."

"Just tell me why you won't even touch me," Buffy pleaded, looking up at Angel beseechingly.

"I can't bear the thought of putting my hands on you again," he said in the quietest, coldest voice anyone in the room had ever heard him use. Fortunately, most of them were too involved in their own dramas to notice him much.

"Well, then we've got a problem, Angel, because I can't bear the thought of you =not= putting your hands on me ever again," Buffy said, her voice clogged with tears.

"How can you say that?" Angel asked hoarsely. "After everything he -- =I= -- did--"

"You were right the first time," Buffy snapped. "After everything that =he= did." She made a distressed sound in the back of her throat. "What was your plan? Now that there's no curse stopping us, we just never have sex for old time's sake?"

Giles, deciding to ignore all of the disturbing sex talk, as well as the emotional ramifications of it, stood. "Yes. Tea. I'll make us all some tea."

"You don't know that suds =aren't= an aphrodisiac!"

"Where, exactly, in the kitchen? Like, if I wanted a snack, could I just run to the fridge, reach in, grab it, and run back out without touching anything that something of HIS touched?"

"I hurt you," Angel insisted. "I can't get that out of my head."

"Have you oh-so-conveniently forgot that when I was all Up With Evil that I tied you down and fucked you, too?" Buffy asked, sounding exasperated.

"That was different," Angel denied through gritted teeth.

"Why? 'Cause you're the guy?" she hissed.

"No," he snapped. "Because I enjoyed it."

"So did I!" Buffy cried.

"What's that? Yes, of course, midnight snacks to go with the tea. Charming. I'll just be down in the kitchen . . . =not= touching ANY of the surface areas."

"You don't mean that," Angel said firmly. "You can't. I was there, remember? I saw your eyes."

"Angelus -- you soulless -- whatever you want to call him . . . yes, he hurt me. And yes, something inside of me broke because of it." The look on his face might have been triumphant, if she hadn't seen his soul dying behind his eyes. "But, Angel, nothing is that cut and dried."

"I hurt you," he said slowly, as though speaking to a small child. "That =is= cut and dried."

"Stop saying you hurt me!" she shrieked. Everyone in the room let their own running dialogue stop at the sound that came out of Buffy's mouth. "Just stop it! Stop acting like what happened--"

"It's called rape, Buffy," he said in a numb voice. "Why don't =you= stop talking around it?"

"Fine," she snapped. "Then if what you did to me was rape, so is what I did to you."

"It's not the same thing," he protested.

"Tell me why," she ordered crisply.

His mouth opened and closed like a guppy. Later, she might think it was cute. Now it was just keeping him from answering her.

"When we were together . . . when you came into my room . . ."

"You mean when I broke into your room, chained you to your headboard, and screwed you into the mattress against your will?" she asked.

"Yes," he gritted out.

"Go on," she urged.

The others were starting to take a page from Giles' book and slowly creep out of the room. All except for Spike, who openly stared at the spectacle before him. Willow pinched his ear between her thumb and forefinger and forcibly dragged him out of the room.

"You didn't hurt me," he said in a rough voice.

"I'm sorry, did I imagine the lacerations, the bite marks all over your body?" she asked sarcastically.

"You inflicted pain," he said calmly, "you didn't =hurt= me."

Buffy was smart enough to know the distinction, and she shut her eyes tightly. When his mind was so determined to believe one thing, it didn't matter what she had to say. He would do anything -- =anything= -- that he believed was best for her. She'd learned that slowly after his return from hell, and had been slammed over the head with it just before Prom.

She felt his hand hover beside her face, and she wished with all her heart that he would touch her the way he hadn't since his memory returned. Buffy's wishes had always proved to be futile, and now was no different. His hand fell back to his side, and she felt him sigh.

"I saw your eyes," he whispered, and in all the time she had known him, she'd never once heard more anguish in his voice. "I see you every morning when I close my eyes. In my dreams, I'm hurting you, I'm raping your body and your spirit and I =enjoy= it while you sob beneath me."

Opening her eyes, Buffy saw that he was no longer looking at her. His shoulders were hunched, and she'd never seen someone so big look so small.

"It isn't--"

"It is me!" he yelled, spinning toward her again. "I have all the memories stored up here." He pressed a finger to the side of his head. "And I can remember every scream you gave here." His hand moved over his heart.

"Then why won't you remember that I never ONCE said no!" she yelled.

"Because I know why you didn't," he yelled back. "You were trying to spare me this, everything I'm feeling now. Buffy, you had to know that wasn't possible, that I would still feel how deeply everything I did to you cut."

"Of course I knew," she whispered, the anger draining out of her. She was filled, instead, with something desperate; something that felt like failure. Was it possible she might not be able to reach him, to help him forgive himself? "But I still fought. And I tried to protect you with the only weapon I had."

"The only weapon I had left you," he corrected bitterly.

"Angel, I =need= you," she said desperately.

"You shouldn't," he whispered. "All I ever do . . . all I've ever done is hurt you."

"Don't say that!" she screamed. She moved toward him and began beating at his chest. He accepted her abuse passively. "Don't ever say that." Soon, her blows weakened and she sobbed against him, clutching the soft texture of his sweater as she emptied herself of grief.

He did not move to hold her.

As she came back to herself, Buffy realized there were no strong arms around her, no gentle voice in her ear trying to calm her sobs. Warily, she stepped back from him, looking up into his eyes.

Tears streamed down his face, but she knew, when she looked carefully at the set lines of his face, that he would not allow her to comfort him, anymore than he would let her take comfort in him.

"I need you," she said again quietly, softly. "I need you in our bed," her voice caught on the word bed, "and I need you with me out there, in the fight, and I need you here," she placed a hand over her still heart, "where I can still feel you; where I've never, not once, been unable to feel you; not when I was soulless, not when you were soulless, not even when you left me."

She moved toward him again, cupped his cheek in her palm and pulled his head down so she could press a gentle kiss to the corner of his mouth.

"I love you," she whispered. "I miss you."

Then, she turned and walked out of the room.

~

In a little hilltop village, they gambled for my clothes   
I bargained for salvation an' they gave me a lethal dose.   
I offered up my innocence and got repaid with scorn.   
"Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm."

~

"Are they still in there?"

"Shhh, the door's opening!"

Cordelia and Xander were huddled in the room opposite the cozy den Buffy and Angel were still having it out in. Cordelia had the door open a crack and was trying to make out who was leaving the room in the dark. Given the size of the person, it looked like Buffy, and when Angel didn't immediately follow, she heaved a sigh of disappointment.

"No go," Cordelia said mournfully.

"Damn. Never thought I'd be looking forward to the day when the two of them would get groin-y with one another," Xander commented.

Cordelia wrinkled up her nose. "I don't know if I'm entirely comfortable with that mental image you just gave me, Harris. Besides, sex doesn't seem to be doing a lot of good with any of the people who are actually having it."

Xander waggled his eyebrows at her. "Maybe that's 'cause we haven't given it the 'ole college try yet."

Rolling her eyes, Cordelia couldn't help but smile. He was trying to cheer her up, and he was being moderately successful. "Neither one of us went to college," she felt obliged to point out.

"Even more reason why we should give THIS the good 'ole college try," he said reasonably.

"Freak," Cordelia said affectionately.

"Is it safe?" a worried voice asked from outside.

"No one knows, Will, but come on in anyway," Xander answered.

A sheepish Willow and a nervous Wesley came through the door.

"Angel just stalked outside," Willow said timidly. "I take it no smoochies?"

"Not unless they've got a funny way of making up," Cordelia said.

"I'm sure Buffy and Angel will find their way back together in their own time," Wesley said diplomatically.

"Says the guy who's gettin' some," Cordelia groused. She turned toward Willow. "And you. Aren't you--"

"I swear, if one more person points out that I'm gay, I'm going to channel the troll world and bash them with a mighty hammer!" Willow cried.

"Chill," Cordelia advised. "I was going to say =mourning=. Aren't you mourning? Since when did kitchen sex get added to the mourning duties? And major eww on another level -- wasn't Tara KILLED in that kitchen?"

"Loosely translated from Cordelia into English, that meant 'I understand your pain, Willow, and am curious if you've found a way to ease it I haven't thought of'," Xander explained as he tugged on Cordy's arm.

"That's not what I meant," Cordelia snapped, wrenching out of his loose grip. "Don't tell me what I meant." She turned back to Willow. "Gunn and I had barely shared our first kiss and I can't imagine letting someone else touch me this soon. You and Tara were so . . . I mean, I saw you, when you got here. You were like freaky bonded in magic and sex and sisterhood. How do you just get over that?"

Tears filled Willow's eyes, and for once, two former enemies weren't regarding one another with hostility. Cordelia was desperate to understand, and Willow wanted to help Cordelia through something the redhead had experienced first hand.

"Because I had to," Willow said softly. "I didn't get a choice about being alive after Tara was gone. And if I hadn't let go, if I hadn't moved on . . . what kind of an insult would that have been to her? I have to live for BOTH of us now and that means I have to live twice as good as I would have before. She'll always be in my heart, Cordelia, but I couldn't let myself just die with her, as tempting as it was."

"Oh," Cordelia said quietly, tears spilling down her cheeks. She hadn't let herself cry in days. "Well. Good for you then."

"That's it?" Xander squeaked.

"What the hell do you expect?" Cordelia snapped.

"Absolutely nothing," Wesley said diplomatically, herding Willow over to the couch. The four of them had gone shopping three days before and bought a few more TVs for the house. One sat a few feet away, waiting to be turned on. "Mindless drivel to take our minds off the unpleasant group sharing earlier?" he proposed.

"I'm in," Cordelia agreed, plopping down next to him on the couch. Xander sat at her other side, and Willow sat on the end next to Wesley.

A gentle tapping at the door drew their attention. Giles poked his head in.

"Is it safe?" he asked warily.

"Relatively," Wesley assured him. "We are watching reruns of 'Remington Steele'."

"Brain candy," Xander said with a demented chuckle.

"Fine," Giles agreed, entering the room with a tray covered in tea and little pastry things. "I made this without touching any surface in the kitchen other than the stove, which I assume was safe." He glared at Willow and Wesley. "And if it wasn't, neither of you are EVER to tell me, is that understood?"

"Yes, Giles," Willow said like a chastised child as Wesley kept his embarrassed gaze riveted to the TV.

~

Well, I'm livin' in a foreign country but I'm bound to cross the line   
Beauty walks a razor's edge, someday I'll make it mine.   
If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born.   
"Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm."

~

((Fucking rain fitting my mood so fucking perfectly))

Spike sat on the curb in front of the Hyperion, a drenched, unlit cigarette in his mouth, his precious coat ruined and plastered to his body. He was soaked to the skin, and his heart felt like someone had reached into his chest and crushed it.

((not like I don't deserve every bloody bit of it. not like I ever had a chance with her anyway. not like I should even care))

He did care, though. That had always been his problem, it seemed. He'd cared about Drusilla, loved her desperately with all his dead, evil heart. Angelus he'd worshipped, even though their relationship had been tense at best, and murderous at its worst. He'd been his Sire, in every way but the initial, and it had killed Spike when the old bastard had abandoned them. When he'd come back for that short while in China, Spike hadn't let himself trust he'd be there to stay. Better to depend on Dru, who would never leave because she'd needed him by then.

Angelus had left, too, and that last time was too much for Darla. The old broad had flipped but good, cast him and Dru loose and went crawling back to her bat faced Sire. Again, he hadn't shed too many tears, because he still had his dark princess, and with her by his side, burning whole cities to ground, plucking people off the street like take-out . . . there was nothing he'd ever need.

It had all come to an end, though. He'd felt it in his bones, when Dru got sick, that the end was coming. Concentrating on finding her a cure had helped him deny it. The rage he'd kept buried toward Angelus surfaced as he hunted him down. He'd known about the curse before he ever hit Sunnyhell, but when he'd come face to face with his 'ole Sire, some part of him had hoped . . .

((everyone I love never loves me back having a soul never helped having a pulse never helped being a monster never helped playing at being a white hat never helped what the hell is wrong with me that even an insane bitch like Dru had still preferred her tosser of a Sire after the ETERNITY I gave her of ME of everything I was))

A truck drove by and splashed filthy water all over Spike. He started to laugh until the cigarette fell out of his mouth.

"Don't that just beat all," he muttered around an unstable chuckle.

His misery was deserved, and he recognized that. He was a monster, and he knew that, too. Didn't have to look in the mirror to see what he'd become. Knowing it didn't change the fundamental core of who he was. Having a chip didn't alter the bloodlust and the craving ((killkillkillfeedfeedfeedfuckfuckfuck)) and the desire to maim every now and then. He just couldn't =do= it. And that inactivity had brought about a side effect he'd never expected.

Forced into close quarters with the humans he once hunted, he began to see them as friends. They didn't return the affection, of course, and they were more like wary allies, but his stupid heart had never been able to make the distinction, and the loss of his soul hadn't changed that. It didn't take a soul to make stupid decision about morshy, fluffy emotions.

It wasn't enough to just be around them, though. He had to LOVE them. First the Slayer, then the witch. He'd screwed the wacko and it hadn't helped, like he'd hoped it would. It didn't blot out the memory of pixie eyes and bright red hair. The only upside he saw to being so hopelessly over the bloody moon for Willow was that it distracted him from the stalker-like obsession he had with Buffy.

At least he hadn't stolen anyone's underwear lately.

There was something nearly pure bubbling up inside of him for Willow. It scared the hell out of him, and made him unconsciously scratch at his skin ((like worms crawling around in there)) over his dead heart.

None of it mattered. He was a monster, and he couldn't even work up the energy to feel guilty for all the things he'd done. He didn't =feel= guilty. It took more than a chip to inspire that. It was damned time he accepted that, too. He was doomed, forever trapped between two worlds, welcome in neither. He would never again be what he was, and there was nothing that could make him be something else.

There were no happy endings for soulless demons, and he just had to figure out how to get his stupid poet's heart to stop pining for things ((WillowWillowBuffyWillowWillow Buffy AND Willow together)) it would never have.

A change would have to be made; to what, he didn't know. But continuing on as he had been was unacceptable.

Something was about to break.

~

In a little hilltop village, they gambled for my clothes   
I bargained for salvation an' they gave me a lethal dose.   
I offered up my innocence and got repaid with scorn.   
"Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm."

~

"Man, you look depressed."

Angel glanced up and glared at Lindsey. He vaguely remembered someone telling him Buffy had granted the lawyer permission to stay with them. If Angel had been in his right mind, he might have objected loudly.

Not being anywhere near his right mind, he remained quiet.

He'd gone back out to the rose garden to think. Rain fell steadily outside, but the roses were protected by the shelter Gunn and Wesley had helped him put up a few weeks ago. Things had been nearly perfect for awhile there.

He should have known some kind of mind-fuck was heading straight for them.

"Mind if I sit down?" Lindsey asked, not waiting for a response.

"What do you want?" Angel growled as he moved a good foot away from the lawyer.

"You seem to be having a rough time lately," Lindsey mentioned. "Thought maybe I could help."

"You want to help me," Angel said, laughing bitterly.

"I help you, I help myself," Lindsey said seriously. Angel was suspicious of the 'good 'ole boy' accent. Was that part of his con, or was he genuinely trying to repent?

Angel was almost shocked to realize that he cared ((maybe I'm not dead after all)) either way, and that if Lindsey really was trying to change, that Angel wanted to help him. ((Thank you, Buffy, for doing my job while I was too lost to notice someone needed me))

((I need you))

He shut out her voice in his head. What she most certainly did =not= need was him. She was just confused and trying to reach out to something familiar. Buffy would get past it and realize she didn't want him anywhere near her. It should have occurred to him years ago, that moment she forced him to drink from her to save his life. The girl he loved so dearly would do anything for someone she cared about, and she had always cared about him.

That's all it was, he maintained. There was just no way she could have gone through what he'd done to her and still want him . . .

Lindsey was still talking.

"So the way I figure, if I help ease the big 'ole guilt cloud hovering around your shoulders, maybe I can blow a few of my own storm warnings safely away."

"If you're sincere, I thank you," Angel said stiffly. "But there's not a damn thing you can do for me."

"Don't be so sure," Lindsey cautioned. "You don't know what I'm offering."

In spite of himself, Angel was curious. He turned to regard Lindsey fully. "Okay, Linds," he said nastily, "change my life."

"I didn't give your brains all of my research," Lindsey said quietly. He reached behind him, extracting from his pocket an ancient looking leather bound journal. He handed it to Angel. "It belonged to a Slayer that lived a few hundred years ago. You might be interested in what she has to say, and as far as I'm concerned, you're the only one here with a right to see it."

"Why?" Angel asked, feeling something tug at his soul. It was far away and soft, almost like a memory brushing ((please let me I can't not without you you're the last you have to don't make me no choice no time take me)) at his soul instead of his conscious mind.

Lindsey shifted in his seat. "The Soul Blessing . . . it's very intricate."

"Willow mentioned that," Angel murmured absently. He'd had enough presence of mind to sit down with the little witch and tell her he wasn't mad at her for restoring his soul. He was sure he hadn't been good company, but he'd gotten the gist of it across. He didn't blame her, and she shouldn't blame herself.

Funny, how he felt like he was waking up; remembering the way he'd zombied his way through life for the past week.

Remembering how much he missed Buffy.

"What is this thing?" Angel asked again, lightly running the pad of his index finger over the cover of the journal.

"The Blessing identifies the . . . what do you call it . . . the =signature= that surrounds every soul it's working the mojo on."

"The signature," Angel repeated dumbly.

"Like a spiritual fingerprint," Lindsey added. "No two in the world are alike."

"Snowflakes," Angel murmured absently, wondering where the comparison had come from. ((love the snow made angels when I was a little girl make love to me in the snow))

That made Lindsey grin for some reason. "You've gotta crack that baby open," he said, indicating the journal. "Plenty of answers there."

"I've got a better idea," Angel snapped, setting the book beside him very gently. "You give me the answers you have now, and I use the book to verify them."

"Fair enough," Lindsey agreed easily, though Angel thought his capitulation had to do with the death grip he had on the front of the lawyer's collar.

"Talk," Angel instructed pleasantly. "I know I'm usually more patient, but I've had a hell of a week."

"She was you," Lindsey choked. "The Slayer. The one in that journal. She was you."

((Wow))

Angel didn't let the awe he felt show. "Neat. I was a Slayer in a former life. How does this change my current incarnation?"

"Because you weren't just =a= Slayer," Lindsey snapped, shoving Angel's hands off of him. The vampire let him go, satisfied they were finally getting into it. "You were THE Slayer. The one that nearly broke the Watcher's Council in two."

"I'm listening," Angel said.

"A friend of mine did the casting on Buffy," Lindsey said, "and traced her soul's signature back a few hundred years to the last vampire who walked this earth with a soul. Until you, that is.

"That journal tells the story of a Slayer who fell in love with the vampire who was assigned by her Watcher to protect her. They were inseparable. They became lovers shortly after they met, and continued their affair until the Council put out the order that all souled vampires were to be exterminated. It seems you weren't keen on following rules then, either, because you sacrificed the lives of a dozen people to save the life of your demon lover."

"I didn't," Angel protested, then realized how futile it was. They were talking about past lives. ((I was a Slayer! And =Buffy= was the vampire?! What is this, some kind of cosmic bad joke?!))

"I'll leave the gory details for you to read yourself," Lindsey said, indicating the journal. "The short of it is, fearing for your lover's safety, the two of you went on the run, the Council dogging you at every turn. At that point, they were ready to assassinate their Slayer and let the next girl, ignorant of the souled vampires, take her place.

"To that end, the Council poisoned Buffy. 'Killer of the Dead,' I believe it's called. You forced her to drink, and she killed you. No such thing as transfusions back then," he said with a wince.

Angel's heart hurt. He had the definite feeling that it ached with his own pain, as well as the phantom echo of the girl he'd been a few hundred years ago.

"What happened . . ." Angel licked his lips, desperate for moisture. "What happened to Buffy's soul?"

"The vampire wandered the earth, doing whatever good he could until the Council located him," Lindsey explained. "It took awhile." He paused for a moment. "Barely a day after Buffy's soul left the earth, yours was reborn in Galway. Like you were waiting for her so you could start again."

"Too bad it took us two hundred and fifty years to get it right," Angel muttered in disgust.

"Actually," Lindsey said, "it seems to be taking even longer than that. Damn but you must enjoy pissing time away in the breeze."

"You don't know a damn thing about it," Angel snarled.

"Maybe not," Lindsey conceded, standing. "But here's something for you to chew on: all the hurt you've done her . . . the Watcher's Council had the solution to all of it and they stood by and did nothing."

"Just because they could have done something, and didn't, doesn't take any of the responsibility away from me," Angel insisted.

"You are the most stubborn, pig headed son of a bitch . . . You know, she forgives you. She loves you. If I had that, do you think I'd be wasting my life sitting out here staring off into the rain and the dark abyss or whatever the fuck it is you're doing? Though, I suppose we don't all get eternity to fuck around with. You enjoy yourself, now."

Angel heard him leave as he stared out into the rain, clutching the journal ((my journal, me, another me, one that was pure like Buffy before she knew THIS me)) tightly as he tried to remember everything good in his life.

~

I was burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail,   
Poisoned in the bushes an' blown out on the trail,   
Hunted like a crocodile, ravaged in the corn.   
"Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm."

~

"Been out here long?"

Buffy smiled up at Xander. "A few minutes," she answered. "It was calling to me."

"I'm supposed to be getting Cordy and Willow sodas," he confided, "but I couldn't bear to go into the kitchen yet. Kept getting scary visuals. No idea how Giles did it." Xander didn't let his brain examine why having someone murdered in that kitchen hadn't turned his stomach enough to keep him out, yet Willow and Wesley getting naked in there had. There was probably some deeply damaging psychological reason that could be traced back to early childhood, but he figured he had enough to deal with and didn't see a good reason to add to it.

Sitting down beside Buffy, Xander took in the tranquility of the rose garden. He'd been out here twice in the same day trying to comfort two brooding souled vamps. That, added to his previous musings, gave him a moment of pause.

((gee, my life isn't weird beyond belief or anything))

"Not doin' so good, are you?" Xander asked unnecessarily. A blind man could see that Buffy was falling apart.

"I don't know how to help him," she sighed miserably. "He's curled up in that shell of pain and I can't crack it no matter how hard I swing the big mallet!"

"So do something romantic," Xander suggested. He plucked one of the blooms from Anya's bush. "Bring him a rose."

"Love to, Xand, but he won't even tell me what room he's sleeping in." Her nose scrunched up in worry. "I don't even know if he's sleeping."

"So give up," he suggested. She looked outraged and he shrugged. "Buff . . . things sound pretty hopeless to me, and you're sounding fatalistic, which usually spells doom. Angel doesn't seem to be very forthcoming with the appreciation, so why are you bothering? Why are you really putting so much energy into healing a guy that's hurt you so bad?"

"How can you even ask me that?" she asked, sounding offended. "I love him more than anything. I need him."

"You, you, you," Xander said, gesturing with his arms. "I know all that stuff. Tell me the truth, Buff."

"That is the truth," she mumbled. "I do love him and I do need him. But I also know he loves me, too. He needs me, too. We don't . . . we don't do so well without each other. I've learned that through gut-wrenching experience." She looked up and narrowed her eyes at him. "And I thought you guys were getting along. Why are you suddenly ragging on him again?"

Xander grinned. "'Cause I gotta look out for my guy. Wanted to make sure you were committed." His grin turned into a gentle smile. "And because I passed by your bedroom and he's sitting in a chair by the window reading a book. Looks like he's waiting for someone."

Buffy looked ready to cry. "Really?" she whispered.

Smiling at her again, Xander tucked the rose into her cold, shaking hands. "Go, Buff," he urged softly.

"He's waiting for you."

~

'Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood   
When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud   
I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form.   
"Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm."

~

"That's gotta be one of the top ten most pathetic sights I've ever personally witnessed."

Lindsey never looked up from his position at the baby grand piano. It was a relic, left over from when the Hyperion had held dances and parties in its grand ballroom. The hideously ugly wallpaper seemed to be peeling the most in the big, open room.

His only remaining hand lightly plucked at the keys, playing a half-tune Faith vaguely recognized. She took a seat on the bench beside him. He still wasn't saying anything, but he scooted to the right just enough to give her room. Their sides brushed and Faith felt something inside her shift.

"This is freaking me out," she said honestly, staring at his profile. He was so focused on the keys. ((One hand. Sucks to be him. Did he play a lot . . . before?)) "This is freaking me out =a lot=," she added, when it appeared he wasn't talking.

((can't do this can't let it happen can't stay away))

"You need to tell me if I'm insane or not," she continued. "I keep having these dreams, and you're in them, and I =know= that you know. The way you talk to me, the way you =look= at me . . . it's like you can burn me alive without laying a hand on me, and I don't fucking like it!"

Still not looking at her, he grabbed her left hand and placed it on the ivory planks. Finally, he looked up into her eyes and smiled crookedly at her, with so much southern charm she wanted to faint into his arms.

((What the hell?! This is nuts, this isn't me, this is . . . nice))

"Can you feel it?" he whispered. She could see his soul behind his eyes. She could see that he had one. And when he looked at her like that, she could feel that =she= had one.

"What?" she asked, wary.

"Magic," he answered, as though it were obvious. A sound came to Faith's attention, and she glanced down at the piano.

Their two hands were playing in tandem. Without missing a beat. And Faith didn't know how to play.

Lindsey began to sing softly.

"Love rescue me, come forth and speak to me, raise me up and don't let me fall, no man is my enemy, my own hands imprison me, love rescue me."

Pausing, he glanced at Faith and raised an eyebrow; posing a silent challenge. Their hands continued to play while she debated. Was this that mythical point of no return she heard people talk about? Was there really such a thing? Hadn't she crossed it once before and clawed her way back from the darkness?

Would she have to claw her way back from this?

Somehow, she didn't think so. Somehow, she felt as though she'd been clawing her way toward this for the past year. She sang the next verse.

"Many strangers have I met, on the road to my regret, many lost who seek to find themselves in me. They ask me to reveal, the very thoughts they would conceal, love rescue me."

"You're pretty good," Lindsey said as they stopped, his voice echoing in the big, open room, just as the music they'd been making had before.

"You're no slouch yourself," Faith added. "But I'm a little shaky on you stopping . . . just when things are getting good." She flashed him a wicked smile.

He returned it, and winked as he brought his hand back to the piano. "Hold onto your horses, darlin'," he advised as he began to play. Her hand joined his immediately, and they began to sing together:

"And the sun in the sky makes a shadow of you and I, stretching out as the sun sinks in the sea. I'm here without a name in the Palace of my shame said, love rescue me.

"In the cold mirror of a glass I see my reflection pass, see the dark shades of what I used to be, see the purple of her eyes, the scarlet of my lies, love rescue me.

"Yea, though I walk in the valley of shadow, yeah I will fear no evil. I have cursed thy rod and staff they no longer comfort me. Love, rescue me."

Their voices faded, as did the melody from the piano. Lindsey leaned in first, and Faith didn't move away. It was the most innocent kiss either had ever shared, and when it ended, they smiled shyly against each other's mouths.

Then, they played another song.

~

I've conquered my past  
The future is here at last  
I stand at the entrance  
To a new world I can see  
The ruins to the right of me  
Will soon have lost sight of me  
Love rescue me

~

Sometimes, when he felt a good brood coming on, Angel really missed the mansion's fireplace.

He wasn't sure why he was there, sitting in his favorite chair by the window, pretending to read the book of poetry he'd recited to Buffy from memory a dozen times. His common sense screamed at him to leave ((she hasn't seen you yet you're going to hurt her again you can't avoid it spare her this you've taken so much already)) and his soul wept for him to stay ((you can't last without her there's nothing if she isn't a part of it you know that she'll forgive you she =forgives= you she loves you anyway)).

The talk he'd had with Lindsey shouldn't have affected him this deeply. There was no reason ((you love her, you idiot, you need her)) to be waiting for Buffy to come to bed, no reason to beg her forgiveness ((she already gave it to you, moron)) and certainly no reason to imagine making love to her ((taking all the bad parts away and replacing them with good, so good, nothing but bliss between us)) until the sun exploded.

What was he thinking? Just because they'd =literally= been soulmates . . . just because the journal he held so tightly, but hadn't been able to read yet, supposedly contained another doomed love story they'd shared hundreds of years ago . . .

That information gave him no right to forgive himself, and no right to beg his way back into their bed. And yet . . . wasn't that exactly what he intended to do? He'd come to this room in the hopes that, possessed of this news Lindsey had given him, he would be able to look into her eyes and see nothing but the possibilities he'd been beginning to believe in a little more than a week ago.

They had gotten so close to having something real, something that only contained a sliver of frustration ((okay a LOT of frustration when all I want to do is gorge myself on her lithe soft body but there's a 'do not enter' sign courtesy a gypsy curse that oh by the way DOESN'T EXIST ANYMORE)) and very little pain.

Pain, an old friend of theirs, had definitely made their acquaintance again; in fact, it had made up for its short sabbatical in spades.

The more he thought of it, the more Angel decided that Lindsey's talk hadn't persuaded him to forgive himself; that was something he wasn't sure he would ever be able to do. What it =had= done was give him a different view of things; it had given him the ability to realize it was Buffy who mattered, and since she apparently needed him, then she would have him.

Of course, the fact that he needed her desperately factored heavily into the equation. He felt as though his skin was sewn onto his bones and muscle with the fine threads of her love, and without it as a daily presence, he was coming apart, his flesh shredding until his soul escaped through the cracks. He had to touch her, to taste her, to feel her envelop him the way she was meant to before he had a hope of feeling whole again.

Those were his needs, though, and he was determined to concentrate on hers. She'd mentioned needing him to talk to her, to be with her, to sleep with her . . . and if that's all she wanted for awhile, he would understand. What he'd done to her . . . A shudder ripped through his body. He was the luckiest son of a bitch on the face of the earth that she could even still look at him and he wasn't about to ask for more.

No sooner had the thought left his mind, then he felt her enter the room. He was facing away from the door -- he wasn't sure he had the strength to look her in the eye yet. Some twisted, scared part of him wanted her to come to him, even though he'd rejected her so forcefully earlier. She moved so silently now, vampire and Slayer reflexes merging seamlessly inside her.

His heart, had it been capable of beating, would have pounded out of his chest. He felt close to tears ((I want this so much I can't fuck it up I can't hurt her again please god if I haven't completely lost you just let me love her the way she deserves for all time)) as her long skirt rustled; she was undressing . . . for bed? He hoped so. There was nothing he wanted more than to crawl into bed beside her, saving recriminations and apologies for the new day.

At least, he thought there was nothing he wanted more.

He was proven wrong when Buffy appeared before him, naked and luminous in the moonlight, a rose cradled gently in her hand. With no conscious thought on his part, he held out his hand to her. Taking it, she moved forward and straddled his lap, taking an inordinate amount of time to get comfortable. She smiled gently into his eyes and her sunshine-hair ((it will always be sunshine hair to me, even after a thousand years in the dark)) fell over her shoulders, obscuring her breasts from his vision. He was only mildly disappointed as he forced his gaze back up to her eyes.

Buffy pressed the very tip of the rose to his nose, then slid it over his mouth, letting it kiss his lips for a breathless moment.

"'Bout time I brought you one of these, wouldn't you say?" she asked in that soft, whiskey-flavored voice she had whenever they were alone.

((only for me that voice is only for me she's offering me everything and all I have to do is take it takeittakehertakehertakeher))

One of his hands moved to the back of her head and he pulled her towards him, kissing her deeply, gently, allowing himself the comfort of her cool, lush mouth.

"I'm sorry," he whispered against her as they pulled back a bit, but did not part. "I'm so sorry . . ."

"Shhh," she whispered, kissing him between words, "don't tell me, Angel." She traced the rose bud over his throat, then leaned in to nuzzle her cheek against his. "Show me."

Angel swallowed deeply, the heat ((comfortblissabsolutionpeace)) in her voice, the promise in her eyes . . . no, he did not deserve this; but he would be the worst kind of fool to deny her anything.

Pressing a gentle hand to her chest, he bowed her backwards over his knees. He wanted to take all the time in eternity with her, but the raging guilt in his head also demanded he take stock of the injuries he had inflicted upon her.

"Angel?" she asked quietly; total trust radiated from her.

A tear spilled over onto his cheek. Oh, how he adored her . . .

"Please," he entreated, "please, let me . . ."

Her smile was so ethereal, he had to shake himself; to remind himself that she wasn't some heavenly angel sent from the Powers themselves to save him. She was a girl, though with an extraordinary set of circumstances, still a girl like any other with the same wants, fears, and needs.

"You can do anything to me as long as you don't stop touching me," she said, tears spilling from her own eyes.

"Never again," he swore, pulling her body flush against his. His inspection could be delayed a moment. He pressed adoring kisses to her throat, her chin, her cheeks, her closed eyelids, licking away her tears, only to find that his actions caused more to fall.

"No matter what," he vowed, cradling her face gently, making sure she saw how much he meant it, "we face it together. If I'm being stupid, you just kick my ass back into line."

"You better believe it, buddy," she sobbed, throwing her arms around his shoulders; holding him tightly as she went back to his mouth for seconds.

And thirds, and fourths, and fifths . . .

. . . and twelve desserts and lunch for a week and enough to feed all of England . . .

~

Suddenly I turned around and she was standin' there   
With silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair.   
She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns.   
"Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm."

~

Faint scars covered her body; she hadn't been feeding well over the past week. She knew it was the same for him. Her heart had been telling her mind what to do, and her heart was convinced that if he wasn't nourishing himself properly, then she wouldn't nourish herself properly. Only a week, and already, they'd both lost a lot of muscle definition and the wounds they'd inflicted upon each other hadn't healed nearly enough.

He bent her over his knees again, and the position made her feel vulnerable. She had to concede that there was a small, miniscule part of her that was afraid. There was trauma in her mind that she couldn't begin to deal with; that she =wouldn't= deal with until she'd nursed Angel back to health enough to pick up the pieces when =she= fell apart.

All that was secondary, though. The most important thing was loving him; letting them heal together.

More tears slid down his cheeks as he traced a particularly nasty line over her collarbone. Threading her fingers through his hair, she rose up to him again and kissed him with all the passion and longing she'd ever felt for him. There was a lot to be said for foreplay, and he seemed intent on tracing gentle circles over every inch of her body, but Buffy was =not= in the mood for slow.

Something extremely primal took control over her as she began quickly undoing the buttons on his shirt. She didn't bother to take it off; merely parted the material and slipped her hands inside to stroke his skin. Her fingers traced his ribs, his abdomen, until they reached the buckle on his belt. Her mouth fastened itself to the side of his neck and she decided to see if vampires could get hickeys, however short a time they might remain.

"Buffy," he whispered urgently, "slow . . . we've got all night."

Releasing his neck, she successfully got his pants open, reached inside his boxers and pulled his cock free. It felt so good against her skin, soft and hard and cool and she couldn't help but stroke him slowly.

"You're darn right we've got all night," she said, pressing a kiss to his mouth, which was emitting the cutest little grunting noises as she increased the pressure of her hand. "But we've been doing 'everything but' for weeks, love," she whispered. "I . . . I =need= you."

Without waiting for a response ((not like he's REALLY going to put up much of a fight)) she rose up on her knees further and sank down on his erection. She took him all the way in, moaning deep in her throat. He really had hurt her . . .the last time ((mind still shying away)); he was very, very big, and she was very, very small. Somehow, it worked, though. Especially when she wanted him as desperately as she did.

"Okay?" he panted ((it's so weird how we both do that)) in her ear. He was definitely getting into it, and all his protests seemed to vanish ((at least that's what I think his tongue tracing every square centimeter of my ear means)).

"Good, good, good," she cooed, while her mind took up a different chant ((good more good more good more)) entirely.

One of his hands moved to her back and he held her firmly to him. The other reached up to almost absently cup her left breast while he began to feast on her mouth again. Buffy cried out against him as he gave a thrust up into her, burying his length to the root inside her. ((not so small after all stretching pain but good pain such good pain))

Thrusting against him in return, Buffy kissed him back avidly, lapping at his tongue with her own, coaxing it back into her own mouth. The pad of his thumb traced the kinds of hard, slow circles she loved over her nipple, and the hand on her lower back slipped lower until it cupped her rear.

His =amazing= fingers ((the things he does with his hands should be in a 'how to give mind bending orgasms' book)) slid between the firm cheeks of her ass and just sort of . . . rested there.

It made Buffy squirm; in a good way.

Mewling against his mouth, she was torn between thrusting forward, towards his thumb on her nipple, or backward, towards his teasing fingers. The result was a frantic sort of vibration that sent her keening into bliss far sooner than she would have thought possible.

The contractions of her body were so violent that she toppled them both out of the chair. Angel, still hard and throbbing inside her body, landed on top and they gave twin whimpers of need. Buffy wrapped her legs around his waist and began urging him on with her feet against his ass.

Angel really didn't need a lot of prodding, as his hand cupped her rear firmly and lifted her lower body off the floor, increasing the tempo of his thrusts. Bowing his head, he pulled her badly neglected nipple into his mouth, lavishing it with attention. Her hand on the back of his head was enough to express her desire, and he began suckling at her with more intensity than he'd ever shown her.

It was half-pleasure half-comfort for him, she knew, and it felt so good ((oh god oh god oh god Angel yes yes yes yes yesyesyesyesyes)) to her that she would have been content to let him nurse for the rest of her eternity.

Especially considering he wasn't neglecting any other part of her. Buffy had put her weight on her shoulders, thus freeing the hand that had been securing her lower body to his to explore elsewhere. It finally settled on moving between their bodies so it could caress the sensitive skin of her lower belly; slipped lower to tease the nest of wiry curls that covered her; finally slid inside her folds; touched the sopping wet flesh above where he thrust into her so ((deep so deep he can never leave me again never again)) deliciously.

Like before, he found the ideal spot over her clit and . . . let his fingers rest there. The intense pace their thrusting set caused a minimal amount of friction, and the light touch was about to drive her out of her mind.

"Angel," she whined, practically incoherent. It was as though the orgasm she'd had a few minutes before had never happened. One thing being soulless had taught her: the connection she and Angel shared was definitely not =solely= based on their souls.

"What do you want, love?" he murmured, giving her an Eskimo kiss.

"More," she whimpered, "harder . . . touch me . . ."

"I am," he laughed. Bastard was =amused=?!

"You know . . . you know what I meeeaaaan," she hissed as he hit a =really= GOOD spot inside her.

"No, I don't," he said, feigning confusion. "Show me. Remember 'show me,' Buffy?"

Growling she forced one of her hands to release its death grip on his shirt and slid it between their bodies. There was something inherently erotic about bumping against his hand with her own while they were both trying to touch her clit. Another thought occurred to her, and she moved a little lower, caressing the base of his cock as it slid in and out of her body.

He groaned, a low, deep sound that brought a pretty smug smile to her face. His hand disappeared and she emitted a cry of desperation ((no no don't go don't go come back please please please)). He hushed her with a deep, soul-stealing ((maybe not the BEST choice of words)) kiss, his hand feeling around the floor for something.

When it returned to her, she gave a wail of gratitude. He'd removed one of the rose petals and was rubbing it slowly over her throbbing clit.

Nuzzling at her neck, he pressed a kiss over his brand on her throat and that was all she wrote. Buffy arched off the floor toward him, mauling the back of his head as she pulled it up for a kiss. Attacking his mouth, she felt his shaft expand inside her as she bit and sucked at his lips. Purposely tightening her inner muscles around him in an irregular rhythm, Buffy swallowed the moans and whimpers of bliss he emitted, offering her own in return.

They collapsed in a pile of limbs and she secured her legs around his waist. There was just =no way= he was moving for a long, long time.

Pressing a kiss to her cheek, he moved his head enough to look down into her eyes. She grinned cheekily at him.

"Welcome home," she murmured, "soul feel all firmly ensconced?"

Angel looked at her gravely. "No," he answered. "It feels like someone set it free."

Bending down, he kissed her again and showed her exactly what he meant.

((okay, so we can move if he's going to do THAT))

~

Bittersweet Legacy: Sanctify -- i will love you

~

'til my body is dust  
'til my soul is no more  
i will love you, love you  
'til the sun starts to cry  
and the moon turns to rust  
i will love you, love you

~

Buffy woke, spooned naked against Angel's strong chest, his hands spread possessively over her body; one rested low on her abdomen, the other cupped itself around her left breast. His mouth pressed dry, adoring kisses to her neck, just below her hairline and she shut her eyes in relief and gratitude that the whole of last night had not been some beautiful dream.

Once he'd sensed she was awake, his thumb began to trace gentle circles around her still-abraded nipple, and she couldn't help the hiss of pain ((maybe not =all= pain)) that left her mouth.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into her ear. However, his hands did not leave her body, like she had expected his guilt to demand. Prodding her hip, he urged her to roll onto her back. His hand returned to the curve of her waist, resting lightly against the front of it, his other getting lost in her hair, combing gently through sleep-tossed tangles.

The expression on his face was solemn, and the quiet stillness of the morning, broken not even by their habit of unnecessary breath, took on an almost holy quality. His head lowered to her chest, and he reverently laved at her nipple with his tongue; pulled the tiny bud into his mouth with the utmost gentleness; swirled his tongue around it in the most soothing caress Buffy had ever felt.

Cooing at the sensation, Buffy wound her fingers through his hair, holding him against her. His intent was not to arouse, apparently, for he stopped before it started feeling =really= good, moved on to her neglected breast, and gave it equal attention. His mouth moved outward from her nipples, taking in the rest of her abused flesh. Soon, she realized what he was doing, and it brought tears to her eyes.

When he pressed his mouth against the savage bite mark on her throat, those tears spilled over her cheeks. His tongue took great, long licks over the ragged tear that hadn't even begun to heal, and she was reminded of a big cat ((dangerous black panther with gentle paws)) attending its mate.

His mouth moved to her shoulders, kissing wetly over their tips. He did not offer another apology; instead, he began to whisper solemnly against her skin, his words slightly muffled by his refusal to part lips from flesh.

"I do not love you as if you were salt-rose or topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off;"

More tears fell from the corners of her eyes and streaked down until they disappeared into her finger-combed hair. These were not tears made up of sorrow or pain, but rather of love and release. It didn't matter why he was quoting this particular passage ((how does he know how does he always know exactly what I need he's magic he has to be magic there's no other logical explanation for it)); it only mattered that he was.

Where once his teeth tore into her flesh, he now let them nibble bluntly at her skin until she gigglecried at how it tickled so perfectly. His hands in her hair, once punishing, practically tearing it from her scalp, now lifted her head gently to receive his kiss; combed through the tangles that remained with great care as he kissed, kissed, kissed her.

He seemed determined to pay a special homage to her bruised, cut lips. Pulling first her upper, then lower lip into his mouth, he sipped at them wetly, bringing his tongue out to trace each and every hurt, then sweep it away with long, smooth licks. It was as arousing as it was soothing, and she pressed her thighs together to ease the ache he caused.

Chuckling against her mouth, he slid one of his big, deadly hands along her body until he reached her legs. He urged them apart, and she obeyed, letting them splay wide on the bed. His hand did not touch her where she wished, instead sliding back up to play with the ends of her hair; occasionally drifting to tickle her sides, just beneath her arms.

And, as his mouth reluctantly parted from hers in search of new territories to worship, he began his litany anew:

"I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul."

Achingly soft, slow kisses were delivered to specific patches of skin on her face, and she knew he was aware of every blow he had delivered to her body. The bruise that had marred her cheekbone for a few days was no longer visible, but the perfect memory he seemed to carry unerringly led him to the exact path the discoloration had once taken. His soft, perfect lips brushstroked back and forth and he let those soft words of love serve as both apology and benediction.

Did he know how his voice whispering these words had kept her sane during that terrible night without his soul?

Did it really matter?

No, she decided as he took tiny mouthfuls of her earlobes; nothing mattered as long as he never left her again.

"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where."

Her left arm came first. He lifted it gently and covered every inch of flesh he encountered with soft wet suction. He paid special attention to the places where he'd once made her bleed, then moved to her hand. Cradling it between both his palms, he pressed tiny kisses to the tips of each of her fingers. A chaste kiss to the back of her knuckles followed, then a low, open-mouthed adoration to her palm; the pulse point on her wrist that no longer beat.

One by one, he sucked each of her fingers into his mouth in turn. He gave each generous attention, sliding them wetly in and out, the visual of which made her long to rub her thighs together again. His silent wishes, however, kept her legs right where they were. He seemed to enjoy having her spread before him like a feast.

After he'd finished with her right arm, he moved inward, laving the skin between her breasts with his rough jungle cat-tongue. He took a few more gentle passes over her nipples, for good measure, encouraging arousal as well as healing from her now. Her response was guaranteed; just thinking about his hands and mouth on her flesh had her wet and wanting in seconds.

Caressing her abdomen with care, he let his palm rest over her womb as he pressed gentle kisses to the curve of her belly. It would never hold life, and she wept for that, as well as the tenderness he showed in paying homage to something so dead inside of her. But she had already cried for the children they would never have, had done so years ago, when she'd first realized vampires couldn't work for the telephone company or have little vampires.

"I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way "

He avoided the thrust of her hips toward him; moved past her wet ((openachingpleaseplease)) sex, trailing his mouth over the fronts of her thighs, her kneecaps, the delicate bone of her shins. Down one leg, and up the other, he moved back and forth until he reached her feet. Unable to resist, she curled one of them against the side of his face, awkwardly cupping his cheek. He rewarded her with a gentle smile, then turned his face inward, kissing the arch of her foot wetly.

Onward he moved, teardrop kisses encompassing every inch of her tiny foot. Soon, he began to lick and nibble at the sensitive skin and she nearly arched off the bed at the sensation. ((oh my god feet are erogenous zones how the hell did I miss that?!)) Her toes were given the same treatment he'd lavished on her fingers, and soon he was finished with both feet and he began to make his way back up.

Urging her to roll over again, he began a new pilgrimage. Over the sharp juts of her shoulder blades, along the line of her spine, his mouth followed the path of his hands. He was sanctifying all that had been burnt to ash, sweeping away the decay with selfless touch and worshipful kiss, leaving nothing but bliss in his wake.

And still, he gave her back his beautiful words.

"that this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep "

Upon reaching the soft curve of her rear, he lingered. Nuzzled the firm globes with his cheek. Purred contentedly as he gave her a playful bite. She giggled and arched her hips back against him, encouraging his exploration. He bent his head and slid his tongue between the cheeks of her bottom, giving her a slow, sinful lick that did bring her hips off the bed, and forced a sound she'd never made before from her mouth.

Before she had processed, his mouth had moved on to the backs of her thighs. He was continually drawn to the sticky wetness that had spilled down the backs of her thighs, and he began to lap at it, causing her womb to contract with want ((moremoregodmoreplease)). Then, he was gone again, tickling the backs of her knees, and she couldn't hold back her laughter from him, not when he was clearly so desperate for it.

In no time, he was rolling her onto her back again. He did not tease this time; instead, he took her hips in his hands and urged her thighs apart with the gentle nuzzling of his face against the wiry hair covering her groin. She spread herself wide open for him, throwing her legs comfortably over his shoulders. This place, this soft, intimate place, had been damaged most of all.

The previous night's activities had been necessary, but she would be lying if she said she wasn't sore. That soreness was nothing compared to the ache she'd had to have him inside her, but it was still present, still persistent in reminding her of the pain that had come before. Then came the first pass of his tongue over her wet flesh, and she gasped at how much it did NOT hurt, at how keenly aware it made her of how precious she was to him.

Little laps at first, followed by gentle swirls over her badly tortured clit. He had nicked it with his fangs, before, and now he paid it substantial apology with gentle flicks and soft kisses. His tongue moved lower, dipped deeper into her and laved over torn-but-healing tissue. Now, the fine edge of pain balanced the pleasure perfectly, and the pitch had her keening his name in moments.

It was not enough for him, and he did not so much as pause while she rode out her climax; instead, he helped bring her down, then immediately began building her pleasure again. Long, slow, agonizing strokes of his tongue against her heightened flesh; his long fingers sliding beneath her body on the bed, gathering bits of her wetness from behind; tracing the line between the puckered rosebud within her cheeks, back to the juices she was giving off in abundance. Back and forth, sliding, dipping, teasing, playing in time with the sucklickswirl of his mouth.

When she came this time, he did not give her a chance to recover. He doubled his efforts, increasing pace and pressure until she was mewling his name in inarticulate little bursts of sound, one hand clutching the sheets of the bed, the other buried against his scalp, holding him to her ((don't go don't go never go never stop)) with a desperate grip.

Tears poured down her cheeks, forever lost in the brand-new pleasure-tangles in her hair. This, then, was a place beyond bliss; a place that only he could take her. It was beyond love, beyond pleasure, beyond God. His single-minded devotion, his adoration, his simple, pure love flowed into her everywhere his body touched hers and it eased the last of the sorrow she'd felt from her veins as though he were nursing from them.

She lost track of time, of how many times, of her name, of where she was. It was possible that he lulled her into a satisfaction so deep that she fell asleep. Whatever the case, the next clear memory she had was of his mouth sliding back up her body until it was again pressed against hers. Both her arms wound around his neck, pulling him to her with gratitude and an adoration returned and tripled in the wake of his perfectly articulate apology.

Her lips pressed to his ear, and she smiled against his flesh; nuzzled her cheek to his, because if he was a big cat, and she his mate, that meant she ought to show affection in kind.

"You know what this means, right?" she whispered quietly, loathe to break the perfect stillness surrounding them.

"Tell me," he implored, brushing his nose back and forth over his mark on the side of her neck.

"You've got to come up with some new material," she got out before she began giggling again. As bizarre as it was, she could not remember ever being this =perfectly= fucking happy.

He raised his head far enough to look her in the eye. He gifted her with a rarely beautiful smile, and as she looked at his soul, spread before her on his wide-open face, she thought she detected contentment there. Contentment in having made her happy; in having given back to her something that he had taken away.

"I'll give you a new verse every day for eternity," he vowed softly. "It still won't be enough to express how much I truly love you."

A lot of guys would have sounded trite saying that. He didn't. Maybe because he actually meant it. That was probably it, she decided. Most guys couldn't get away with it because they weren't even close to meaning it.

"I don't need verses," she told him honestly.

"What do you need, then?" He sounded so earnest. "If it's within my power . . . hell, even if it's not."

She smiled at him gently; it amused her, in that moment, that he still didn't get it.

Hooking her fingers over his ears, she tugged at them. "C'mere," she instructed, in that voice she remembered him once calling 'little-girl-husky'.

Their lips touched, and she released his ears to gain purchase over much more bountiful patches of flesh. She loved his back.

Sometime over the next day they spent in bed, she managed to convince him that all she would ever need was everything that he was; for all time.

No more, and certainly no less.

~

and I need to know - will you stay for all   
time...forever and a day  
then I'll give my heart 'til the end of all   
time...forever and a day  
'til the storms fill my eyes  
and we touch the last time  
i will love you, love you...

~

Bittersweet Legacy: Elucidation -- Grand Illusion

~

The obliteration of your isolation  
the complete explosion of your fondest notion  
This disintegration is your elevation  
It's a grand illusion, it's a grand illusion

~

She was having a nightmare.

If the tossing and moaning hadn't alerted him to the fact, her ridged forehead and elongated canines would have been a dead give-away. She'd had nightmares before, of course, but he'd never been very good at waking her from them. Gently prodding a disoriented vampire awake when said vampire was in the midst of a night terror was like poking a sleeping dragon -- if you wanted to live to see another moonrise, you just didn't do it.

Buffy was suffering, though, and Angel had never been very good at watching her suffer.

"Sweetheart," he whispered into her ear. He brought a hand up to her face; stroked her ridged forehead; tried not to notice how a hidden, hated part of him thought she was even more beautiful, now, than she ever had been as a human girl.

"Angel," she whimpered, "no . . . please, make it stop, please . . ."

"Buffy, wake up," he commanded gently. "Baby, wake up."

Amber eyes snapped open and her fist came out and socked him in the mouth. His head snapped back from the impact, and he felt his lip split. Her breathing was heavy ((how does she keep it up when she's sleeping?)) and labored as her gaze darted around the room while she tried to reorient herself to her surroundings.

His tongue gently probed the tiny wound she'd given him. Angel winced and let it be. It would close in a few minutes, anyway.

"Oh, God, I'm sorry," she cried, her soft, mothering hands flying to his face, taking stock of his injuries.

"It's just a scratch," he assured her quietly. His hand pressed to her naked back, circling soothingly against her flesh. "What was it?"

"We were human," she said shakily.

He waited for her to expound upon that a bit. When she didn't, he leaned in closer to her.

"Wow," he said with a little laugh, "sucky dream."

Returning his laugh with an almost smile, she shook her head. Her arms wrapped themselves around her middle, and he moved until he was behind her, wrapping his arms around hers. She leaned back against him gratefully, her cheek pressed against his throat, the top of her head perfectly situated beneath his chin.

"We were miserable," she continued. "Enemies of ours came and held us down. They made . . . they made me watch while they killed you and turned you all over again." Her head shook again, this time in denial of what she'd seen.

"Baby, I'm sorry," he murmured, pressing a kiss to her temple. "I've . . .I've had dreams like that. Only . . . the other way around. I know how hard it is to come out of it."

"Is that why you did it?" she asked quietly.

Confusion filled him, and he traced the underside of her belly with the pads of his thumbs. "Did what, sweetheart?"

"Is that why you didn't stay human?"

((what did she say she knows she can't know she doesn't remember only I know only I remember only I carry that burden))

"What?" he croaked, his entire body tense.

Slowly disentangling herself from his embrace, she turned until she could face him. Then, she hooked her legs around his body and set herself comfortably in his lap. The position should have been intensely erotic, but as she circled his neck with her arms, and stared at him with her wide-open-I-love-you-eyes, he felt nothing but comforted, safe.

"I read your diary," she said with an embarrassed little wince. "And you wrote . . . I mean, it was pretty clear, and then also not so clear. You were human, but I don't remember it, and from some of the other things you wrote, I kind of got the impression that you became . . . =not= human because you were scared for my life."

"They said you would die if I remained mortal," he choked out. Tears clogged his throat and clouded his vision and he was back in that chamber, knowing the price for Buffy's life would be immeasurable.

((this is the first time I've ever really felt this way))

In all the scenarios he'd worked out in his mind -- sacrificing his humanity, his very life, once again accepting the cursed existence that had been his most deserved punishment -- he had never anticipated that they would steal the very memory of her fondest wish.

((like I've always wanted to; like a normal girl, falling asleep in the arms of her normal boyfriend; it's perfect))

"Who's they?" she asked softly. He forced himself to meet her gaze, and found, not the anger and recriminations he'd expected, but an inexhaustible curiosity, a longing to understand fully what had been taken from her.

And so, he told her in halting, vivid detail every second of that day ((what do you want can't let you get hurt again keep in touch perfect yum chocolate and peanut butter mortal coordination another one just like it tomorrow perfectperfectperfect it regenerated itself this is your great warrior alone you are dead we're together not a lower being what we could have had I'll never forget I'll never forget)) they had spent together that had been erased.

"And then I forgot," she said around tears of her own. "Gee, that was really disappointing of me. You'd think those wiggy Slayer powers would be good for circumventing one little temporal fold."

It was a brave front she was putting on, and he adored her beyond words for it. She held onto him so tightly as he told her this final secret in his heart, and the weight that lifted from him once it was out made him feel lighter than he had, even on that perfect day.

"I didn't know how to tell you," he confessed, nuzzling against her palm as she wiped the tears from his cheeks with her magical fingers.

"It's okay," she promised him, smiling as best she could. Her lower lip became imprisoned between her teeth, and he knew she was trying to work up the nerve to ask him something she didn't actually want to ask.

"What?" he prodded gently.

"Do you . . . " She sighed, deeply, then apparently made the decision to plunge ahead. "Do you ever wonder if you made the right decision? Do you ever regret it?"

"Only about a million times a day." He tried to laugh, but the sound was hollow, and he matched her sigh for sigh. "It eats at me," he confessed at last. "But then . . ."

"But then . . . what?"

"I think about . . . what if you had died, really died, and I never got to hold you again? And that's unthinkable to me, Buffy. I can't imagine a world where you don't exist." He winced. "I second guess myself all the time, and I know how hard this new . . . phase of your life is for you, but I honestly don't think I could go back and make a different decision." He almost smiled. He really tried to, for her sake. "Here isn't so bad, anymore, is it?"

The smile she gave him in response was blinding, if a bit shaky, and nearly caused his dead heart to thump. Her hands cradled his face again, and she leaned forward until their foreheads touched. He remembered the position ((oh god it's not enough time)) but it no longer cut as deeply as it had in the past.

"At least now we get to share forever, right?" she whispered.

Nodding, he tangled his hands in her hair and kissed her gently. Soon, gentle was a thing of the past, and the position they were in made its sensual nature abundantly clear as she began to rock against him. Human, Buffy had been a highly sexual creature, and if his experience over the past few months was any kind of gauge, she was an exceedingly sexual vampire, with all the stamina, desire, and endurance that entailed.

Fortunately for both of them, he matched her in every way. And it had been =such= a long time since he'd been allowed to revel in it . . .

Her face changed against him and the demon that lived beneath his skin howled in excitement. One of her fangs nicked his tongue (though intentionally or unintentionally, he couldn't be sure) and she sucked at it avidly. Part of him was more turned on by that than he had ever been in his life; another part of him was repulsed.

Still another part was too terrified to move.

They still had to be careful. The creatures that lived inside of them were bloodthirsty, slathering animals, capable of the most horrendous atrocities the world had ever known. Together, he had no doubt they would have succeeded where he and Acathla had failed, so long ago.

The sharing of blood with one's mate was a natural extension of what it was to be a vampire. It also brought back memories of Darla to him, memories of death and satisfaction and pain and pleasure that he'd just as soon forget. It seemed sacrilegious to share anything close to it with Buffy, whatever her current state of being was.

He had always been so careful to shield her from this part of himself, and at every turn, she had sought to discover more. Her curiosity, her gentle acceptance, had eventually loosened his resolve. He hadn't felt self-conscious when she attended to him when he was vamped out. She could bring him blood without him wanting to curl up and die for soiling her hands with his filthy 'habit.'

However, not until that night on the floor of the mansion had he truly lost control with her. And then, it had almost killed her.

Several times since then, he had drunk from her, and she from him. But there had always been something else in control -- his lack of soul, her lack of soul, Dru's creepy spell -- and so his automatic fear had been banished.

Now, that fear was very much present, and his equal, but extremely opposing desires -- both to flee from her hold, and to burrow himself inside of her until control became a moot point -- were serving to drive him insane.

The decision -- to act, or not to act, and if so, which action to take -- was removed from him by a chipper, insistent knock at the door.

It opened a second later, and Cordelia entered, her hand already covering her eyes.

"Please be decent," she begged. "I wouldn't even be in here, but it's been almost thirty-six hours since you guys left, and you've gotta be hungry or =done= or something by now."

Buffy and Angel scrambled for covering. Buffy snagged the black sheet, and Angel wound the comforter around his hips. Her head came to rest against his shoulder, and they sat, side by side, as though they hadn't been doing anything else.

The illusion would have been perfect, had Buffy's fingers not been inching lower and lower on his belly beneath the covers.

"It's safe to look, Cordy," Angel announced, covering Buffy's wandering hand with his own, and holding it against his abdomen gently.

Cordelia let her hand drop warily, then, seeing they were at least partially covered, made her way over to the bed, placing her hands on her hips as she looked down at them.

"Willow would like you to pretty please come down to breakfast even though she knows how precious this reunion time is to you, because she has something she wants to discuss with everyone all at once." Cordelia rolled her eyes. "Although why she couldn't come up here and tell you herself, we'll never know."

Buffy smiled, and delivered a smacking kiss to Angel's cheek. "I'm going to go take a shower," she announced, hopping out of bed with the sheet loosely draped around her. Angel couldn't help but watch as it drifted low on her back, revealing the soft curve of her ass as she walked.

"She's subtle," Cordelia noted.

Angel directed his attention back to the brunette before him. He smiled warily. He hadn't been alone with Cordelia since . . . his mind shied away, and he stared down at his hands, which were nervously picking at bits of invisible lint on the comforter.

"She's giving us a chance to talk. In private," Cordelia added, sitting on the edge of the bed. She made a face. "I really hope I didn't just sit in the wet spot."

He couldn't help it. He laughed, because she was just so =Cordelia= that he couldn't help himself. Then, he sobered, instantly ashamed, and once again looked away from her.

Cordelia sighed, in a distinctly put-upon Cordelia way, and leaned forward to wrap her arms tightly around his shoulders. He was so shocked, he couldn't move for a moment, and when he did, his arms went around her gently, but so tightly he was sure he was threatening her ability to breathe. She didn't complain, though, just held him, and the tears he felt against his shoulder prompted his own to fall.

"It's okay," she whispered into his ear. "You know I love you, no matter what."

"No, I don't," he whispered back. "But it's nice to hear."

~

You're crying, you're trying so hard now  
You'll be laughing  
a hundred thousand years

~

"Where are they?" Willow whined. "Cordy, you were supposed to get them to come down for breakfast =today=."

"Hey, I walked in there while they were doing God knows what," Cordelia said, holding up a hand. "I braved the fire. I carried your banner. Is it my fault that he went to take a shower before she'd gotten out of it?"

"Visual places," Xander reminded her, wincing from his position hunched over her majesty's fingernails. "Still trying to pretend they're just behind closed doors catching up on their reading."

"Oh, please," Cordelia huffed. "Not even you could be so delusional--"

"Could we please cease the disturbing sex talk once and for all?" Giles asked tiredly, sipping at his coffee.

"I can't believe you're giving her a manicure," Willow noted, staring at the intricate strokes Xander was taking with Cordelia's Purple Passion nail polish. She grinned evilly. "It seems really emasculating."

"I'll have you know a professional looking manicure with one of those blasted home kits is bloody hard to come by," Wesley defended.

Willow just stared at him. "Please tell me the hands that have touched my body--" Giles made a moaning-sighing-disgruntled noise in the back of his throat "--have not also given Cordelia a manicure."

"Twice," Cordelia confirmed. "Although he's nowhere near as good as Angel."

"Angel certainly has the touch," Wesley admitted admiringly.

"I agree, but I've got to say, not really comfortable with hearing you say it, Wes," Buffy announced as she and Angel entered the room, looking squeaky clean and shiny.

"Good, everyone's here," Willow said happily.

"Lindsey, Spike, and Faith aren't," Buffy noted. "Not that I'm all torn up about Spike," she added cheerfully.

"No one has seen Lindsey and Faith since the night before last," Giles informed them.

"I think they're doin' it," Cordelia announced.

"They are not doing it," Xander argued. "Just because people are absent in pairs doesn't automatically mean they're--"

"Put a sock in it, Denial Boy," Cordelia interrupted. "They're doin' it. End of story."

"And Spike?" Buffy asked, half-amused at this obvious re-hash of the ancient, once-thought-long-buried Xander and Cordelia Show.

"Spike already knows what this is about," Willow informed them. "I sort of ran the idea by him a couple of weeks ago, before . . . well, before." She winced apologetically at Angel, and he gave her a half-smile of acknowledgement. "Anyway, he's in his hole of a room sleeping the daylight off." Everyone looked at her strangely, and she bristled. "I'm just quoting him."

"Your point," Wesley prompted, watching as Xander started on the second coat of Cordelia's right hand, and Angel began applying the small decals to her dry left. His gaze met Buffy's across the table, and she shook her head at him. Their thoughts were identical; what is this power that Cordelia has, and where can I get some?

"My point," Willow repeated, taking a deep breath, "is that I think we should have a memorial service." She didn't give anyone a chance to digest this before she plunged ahead: "A big, giant service, 'cause . . . well . . . considering all the people we've lost recently, having individual services seems kind of . . . depressing. And I don't mean that it isn't depressing -- 'cause it is -- but . . ."

"We understand, Willow," Giles assured her gently.

Buffy and Angel both looked guilty.

"Tell Mopey and Mopier to turn those frowns upside down," Cordelia ordered, inclining her head toward them. She smiled sadly, gently, removing the sting from her words. "We've =all= lost people, you two included. You two =most of all=."

"Yeah, but I don't want this to be a grief-y, poor us sort of farewell type thing," Willow continued. "I think . . . I think we should have a big party, where everyone can share their memories and laugh and cry and be cleansed." She smiled in her Willow way, then frowned and wagged a menacing finger in Buffy and Angel's direction. "And this is a guilt-free party, so check it at the door."

"Sir, yes, Sir!" Buffy parroted, mock-saluting.

Silence spread through the kitchen.

"So?!" Willow asked at last, impatient. "Is it a go?"

"I think it's a great idea, Willow," Angel said approvingly.

"I say we go for it," Buffy agreed.

"Xander, you used the Purple Passion-- I told you I wanted =Poignant= Purple!"

Xander just stared at her. "Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me."

A beat of silence passed. Then, Cordelia grinned at him. "I am, actually. Sucker."

~

There is only one day  
and tonight is the night  
It's a grand illusion

~

"Hey. Got a second to spare for an old enemy?"

Buffy looked up from her nails. She was attempting to apply some of Cordelia's decals to the nails she'd conned Angel into painting earlier. Cordelia might have power over All Men but she had power over One Man and that was all she really cared about.

"Is that what we are, Faith? Old enemies?"

Shrugging, the only human Slayer currently living took a seat opposite Buffy. "Didn't want to wrongly imply that we were old friends."

"We were, though," Buffy noted. "We were friends. A long time ago."

"Not so long," Faith disagreed.

"Seems like centuries," Buffy confided quietly.

"Lot's changed," Faith agreed. "And a lot hasn't. Last time we were friends, Xander and Cordelia were bickering, Angel was broody and totally in love with you, and Willow was trying to make everybody feel better about their crappy situation while Giles watched over us with a disapproving frown." She smiled. "Even when they change, things don't change that much, B."

"Like us?" Buffy asked, genuinely curious. "Do we change?"

"Slayers?" Faith clarified. Buffy nodded. "No. I don't think we do. I didn't. Even when I was so deep in that evil that I couldn't see left from right, there was something screaming inside of me: something primal that was screeching at me to destroy the threat. Since the threat was me, I turned a little self-destructive."

"That's why you came to Angel," Buffy said.

"I thought I could make him kill me," Faith said, "and instead, he reached inside and pulled me free. I still feel it, sometimes, trying to get its hooks back into me, but it doesn't stand a chance." She grinned crookedly. "I'm stronger, now. Or maybe I'm kidding myself. Either way, I win."

"I'm glad," Buffy said sincerely. "I'm glad you've found a little peace. I'm glad Angel helped you. And I'm really glad he didn't listen to me while I was being vengeful bitter psychotic girl," she added dryly.

"B, I gave you cause," Faith said lightly. "More than your share."

"No, you really didn't," Buffy said softly. "Not for the way I acted. Like I was God or something."

"You were only human," Faith objected. "I dished out major pain to you. It had to break you."

"It shouldn't have," Buffy maintained. "And it wouldn't have, it if hadn't been for everything else." Faith looked confused, and Buffy smiled gently. "We don't change," she reminded her. "We're not 'just human.' We're more. We're Slayers. We hold the fate of everything in our hands." She shook her head. "And I let a vampire rip my heart out and walk away. Then I got so obsessed with the idea of normal that I forgot who I was. Riley was a part of that. The fact that he couldn't tell the difference between us . . . sort of pushed me over the edge. Since I couldn't be mad at him, you got all the Faith-rage =and= all the Riley-rage."

"Yeah, well . . ."

"You don't know what to say. That's okay. You were never good at the female bonding thing." Buffy sighed. "I really wish I'd figured all this out sooner. It might have saved me a lot of pain when Riley eventually left."

Not to mention the pain it might have saved him. Buffy shut her eyes. Sometimes, she could still taste his blood in her throat. It was idealistic and bitter at the same time, filled with all the naïve dreams he'd had for them and the crushing disappointments he'd experienced once he realized she could never be what he'd needed her to be. That she'd been turned, and he'd been her first meal, had only been the last in a long line of scenarios that hadn't gone the way Riley had planned.

Faith cuffed her on the arm. "Hey, at least you got the last word in." She made a face to show she was kidding.

It was morbid, and wrong, but Buffy laughed. Then she covered her mouth. "Oh, God . . ."

Grinning, Faith kicked her foot out gently and nudged Buffy's with it. "I swear, it'll be our secret."

"Thank you," Buffy mumbled, guiltier now than she had been months ago.

"Hey, so I did something maybe stupid that I think feels really right," Faith said after a few moments of silence.

Buffy glanced at her warily. "I'm really hoping it wasn't sleeping with Spike."

"Shut up!" Faith laughed, punching her in the arm again. "That was possibly the =stupidest= thing I've ever done, and in no way was it right." She grinned. "But, damn, that boy's sure got skills."

"I'm not hearing this," Buffy moaned, plugging her ears with her poorly-decal'd fingers.

"You never liked to kiss and tell with Angel," Faith plowed ahead, "and DAMN do I get why. He's got at least a generation on Spike, and seriously, from the way he talks, he pays a hell of a lot more attention. If I had him in my bed--"

"Which you don't, haven't, or ever will," Buffy assured her menacingly.

"--I wouldn't let anyone else in on my big secret, either," Faith finished as though she hadn't been interrupted.

"So what's the other stupid thing?" Buffy asked.

"I kissed Lindsey. Or, you know, he kissed me."

"Lindsey?!" Buffy shrieked.

"Jeez, try it a little louder, I don't think Spike heard you down in the Batcave."

"Lindsey?!" Buffy hissed.

"I've been dreaming him, B," Faith confessed quietly. "I knew he was coming at me before he ever hit my radar. I've been fighting it and fighting it from the minute I connected those really crappy dots, and I can't fight it anymore."

"Are you in love with him?" Buffy asked, shocked.

Faith shrugged. "Maybe. Yes. I don't know."

"Is he in love with you?"

"How the hell should I know?" Faith snapped.

"Come on, Faith," Buffy chided, "I know you're more the screw 'em and leave 'em type, but you =know= when a guy's in love with you."

"He let me help him into bed," she muttered quietly. Buffy raised an eyebrow. Faith gestured. "He's only got the one arm, right? So getting undressed, pulling back the covers, snuggling in real deep . . . it's not so easy for him. He let me walk him to his room, come inside, and . . . help. I stripped him down to his boxers, helped him take off his plastic hand and tucked him in." She shook her head. "Jesus, I =tucked= a grown man into bed, what the fuck is wrong with me?!"

Buffy grinned widely. "You're in love."

"Fuck me."

~

The devastation of your separation  
The disillusion of your constitution

~

"Angel, that book of Grecian prophecies . . . is that the original translation, or the modernization?"

"Original," Angel answered absently, barely glancing up from the journal he held in his hands. Though he'd sat down in his chair last night with the intent of reading it, his thoughts had been too consumed with Buffy to get past the first page. After the night he'd spent in their bed, however, he couldn't stand to put it down. Was it possible it held all the answers to the questions that had plagued his mind and soul for as long as he could remember? Had he lived and died with his love, only to forget it all when the next life cycle began?

Would he live and die with her again, and once again sacrifice the memory of all the tears and joy they'd shared in the hopes of being granted another lifetime at her side?

For that was what the journal implied; that their past counterparts had been so sure of a next life, so sure that they would be reunited eventually, that not even the threat of final death had dampened their passion for one another. If Lindsey was to be believed (and Angel's instincts definitely believed), it was Angel that had been the Slayer, and he had died at the hands of his lover ((Buffy)), the last souled vampire to walk the earth.

Last, that was, until Darla had insisted their twisted family tour the Romanian countryside . . .

He could still remember it. The modest house he and Darla had shared; the hotel a few streets away Spike and Dru had taken. He'd tried to instill in both of them how much easier it was to kill people who owned their own space, instead of travelers passing through. Their accommodations were yours for as long as you deigned to have them; but Spike had been impulsive, and he and Dru had already decided on a young couple, on holiday from London. Besides -- Dru always used to love room service.

It was for the best, Angel realized now. If Spike and Dru had stayed with he and Darla, no doubt she would have been displeased; so displeased that she might not have brought him that little present, bound and gagged and so scared her blood slid down his throat like finely aged wine . . .

His eyes shut tightly, and he forced the images, the full sensory recall, away. He hated himself for recalling how =good= he'd felt at the time, drinking that poor, frightened girl's life away. And yet, her death might be the one he regretted least. Because it -- or, more accurately, her tribe's reaction to it -- had set him on the path he currently walked with at least a modest amount of pride.

And besides -- how many more people would be dead now, by his hand, if he hadn't been cursed in those woods over a century ago? It was unnatural, and the curse had made his existence seem like some twisted cosmic joke, never more so than after he'd learned of its escape clause, but surely, it was better than the alternative. Better than more blood on his hands. The monster inside him had been caged for over a hundred years, give or take a slip or two, and no matter the intense burden, Angel preferred it that way. Quietly, he even believed he deserved it.

Once again, his attention returned to the journal in his hands. He'd barely read a quarter of it, skimming the rest, and already, he was filled with questions, doubts, and uncertainty. Was this Blessing really any better than the curse? Naturally, the lack of an 'out' clause (assuming it really did lack -- what was perfect happiness, anyway, and was he even capable of it anymore, without benefit of pharmaceutical or magical intervention?) made it =seem= a lot more humane than the Romani alternative.

But what of the rest of it? The idea that his soul had been floating out there ((was it in heaven or hell or somewhere else entirely? are the souls vampires destroy and the bodies they animate doomed for all time? or is there peace out there, looming, waiting, when the monster meets a dusty end?)) without a body to tether it . . . what did that do to the theory of reincarnation? Had his soul been reborn, and when the Gypsy elder woman called it forth to be returned to his body, had his new form simply died on the spot?

He could no longer argue against the idea of reincarnation -- his soul =knew= he had been this Slayer that wrote the journal he was gripping much too tightly -- but he was still as far in the dark as he had ever been, as to the nature of his existence. More so, perhaps, if he took Buffy into consideration.

And how could he fail to take her into consideration, when she was at the very center of the existence that puzzled him so? If those nights in Romania had set him on the path, Buffy had shone a great light onto it, guided him on his way, kept him from tripping in his darkness, both necessary and self-imposed. Even trapped in the dark as she was now, Buffy was still the brightest light he'd ever known.

Yet there were things about her new state of being that frightened him; things he knew she still didn't fully understand. He was filled with disquiet when he realized she wanted to 'play' at being a vampire, to indulge the whims and desires the demon whispered in her mind, without facing the consequences that came after. She had never appreciated the fine line he walked each and every day, and because her flirtation with the darkness had lasted such a short time, he doubted she ever would.

The journal called again, and he began absently flipping through it, noting a few of the words and phrases that so eloquently spoke of devotion and longing, the desire to ease the pain of the vampire this Slayer had loved so desperately. His ((Buffy's)) existence had been as dark and lonely as Angel's had, and his past self hadn't known how to help him anymore than Buffy had.

Was it so unnatural, not just the idea of Slayer and vampire lying down together, but of a vampire possessing a human soul at all? Had the Watchers, in their infinite shortsightedness, done the right thing for the wrong reasons when they put an end to it?

Were he and Buffy now a continuation of a race that was much better left extinct?

"Meanwhile, I've decided to learn how to juggle, as my talents would clearly be put to much better use as a circus performer."

"I'm sorry, what?"

Wesley sighed deeply, regarding Angel with a patient scowl. "You haven't heard a word I've said for the past ten minutes."

"I heard something about juggling," Angel defended himself. He paused for a moment. "That was a test to see if I was listening, right? Because you and juggling . . ."

"Yes, it was a test," Wesley confirmed. "Although I've been prattling on for the past ten minutes, trying to work up to a conversation about the new woman in my life, and you've been a thousand miles away."

Gesturing with the journal he still gripped tightly, Angel stood, walking over to where Wesley sat. "I've just got some . . . heavy thoughts . . . on my mind," he explained, taking a seat beside the former Watcher.

"Which is completely understandable," Wesley allowed. "It's just . . ."

Angel smiled gently. "You want to talk about your new girlfriend."

"Yes," Wesley confirmed enthusiastically, putting aside the book he'd been looking through. "Angel, I don't know that I've ever felt . . . quite like this before."

"Willow seems . . . happier recently," Angel offered.

"She does?" Wesley sounded so eager, Angel's heart broke a little for him. He truly hoped her affair with his friend was more than a coping mechanism. Saving Angel from having to answer, Wesley frowned. "In all the babbling you completely missed earlier I'm sure I never got around to mentioning her by name."

Uncomfortable, Angel tilted his head to the side. "It's, uh . . .a predator thing." He shifted a little. "Buffy knows, too," he added in weak defense.

"Ah. Of course." Wesley's gaze seemed riveted to the journal in Angel's hands. "Your heavy thoughts wouldn't have anything to do with the events of the past week, would they?"

Grimacing, Angel reluctantly set the journal aside. "It's never far from my mind. I don't think I've apologized to you yet for--"

"Angel, there's really no need," Wesley interrupted.

"You and Gunn were close, closer than he and I--"

"Yes, and since we were so close, I can assure you that I don't blame you for what happened." Wesley smiled a little. "Although Gunn would probably give you hell for it."

That almost made Angel smile. Almost. "Cordelia . . . she's been very understanding. Much more so than I expected, given how . . . difficult it was to rebuild things after . . ."

"I'd dare say the last time, to Cordelia, was far worse than what has just transpired. It's much easier for her to put you in separate boxes -- Angel, good, Angelus, bad -- and see only what she wishes to. When . . . when you fired us . . . things became complicated for her. And we know how much Cordelia detests complications." The two men shared a smile. "She loves you, as we all do. We don't blame you. I'm not sure what is to blame, what Power decides who lives or dies and which of us are used as pawns to that end. But no one here blames you for Gunn, anymore than we blame Buffy for her . . . shall we say, indiscretions?"

"That's a very . . . kind . . . way to put it," Angel demurred, wishing he could accept Wesley's absolution. His gaze was drawn to the journal at his side; the journal he had yet to share with Buffy, with anyone, really . . . Perhaps Wesley would be able to lend an impartial opinion on the matter . . .

A loud crash disrupted Angel's thoughts.

"VISION!" someone yelled from outside the office.

Wesley beat Angel out the door, but only because the vampire took an extra second to stuff the journal between the really boring books on the shelf.

~

It's exhilaration, it's your liberation  
It's a grand illusion, it's a grand illusion

~

"Buffy, I can handle it," Angel insisted for the third time.

"I just don't like the idea of you getting mangled without me," Buffy maintained.

One of Angel's crooked smiles challenged her phrasing, and Buffy relented. "Fine. But if you get banged up too bad, just remember I might have prevented it all."

"If I get banged up too bad . . . maybe you'll kiss it and make it better."

Never, not once, had she been able to resist that look on his face. Standing on tiptoe, Buffy wrapped her arms around Angel's neck and gave him what she liked to think of as a Super Slayer Special Knock-Out smooch. The dazed expression on his face when she pulled away seemed to confirm that assumption.

"Be careful," she instructed.

"It's just a Fyarl hassling some kids. I'll be back before you have time to miss me."

Not likely, she thought, but kept it to herself. "I still say the two of us could crush it faster."

Angel glanced over her shoulder, then looked back into her eyes. "Wes is meeting me with that magic dust that's supposed to make everything go down smoothly. I . . . I'd rather you stay here, and take care of Cordelia."

Glancing behind her, Buffy noticed that her former high school nemesis really didn't look too hot. Over the past few months at the Hyperion, Buffy had gotten used to Cordelia's visions. So used to them, in fact, that she sometimes took for granted what kind of toll they took on her. At the moment, Buffy was the only other person around. Angel was right, his over-protectiveness aside. Cordy needed someone.

Buffy squeezed Angel's hand, and again mouthed 'be careful' before she snagged a glass of water and some Advil from the side table, then sat beside Cordelia on the red couch in the lobby.

"Thank you," Cordelia said gratefully, downing four tablets quickly. Her eyes were watering. Buffy refrained from asking if she could get Cordelia anything, having learned from Angel and Wesley how unwelcome that question seemed to be. Amazing, Buffy thought, that the most self-involved person she'd ever known was also one of the bravest.

"It can't be easy," Buffy noted.

"What?" Cordy mumbled, washing the pills down with a few healthy gulps of water.

"Queen C., getting visions of people in need so that a vampire with a soul can go save them."

Cordelia smiled wryly. "It's certainly been an adjustment."

"You seem . . . resolved to it, though," Buffy added. She still wasn't sure how to relate to Cordelia. It wasn't that she was jealous of the other girl, although how dear she was to Angel made her . . . not uncomfortable, really, but . . . unsure. Which was stupid, but Buffy had learned a long time ago that pretending you weren't feeling something was worse than just letting yourself feel it.

"Resolved," Cordelia laughed. "Yeah, you might say that." She shrugged it off. "I'm committed to be with him until the bitter end. And hopefully, it'll be more sweet than bitter."

"We'd all like to win the war," Buffy agreed.

"Plus, you know, once he shoeshines and turns human, I'm pretty sure the skull-crushing visions go away for me, too." Cordelia smiled brightly, standing. "Thanks for the Advil."

Buffy sat, staring at the antique axe hanging from the opposite wall, long after Cordelia left the lobby. She listened to the borrowed blood pump slowly through her veins; didn't even remember to keep up the affectation of breathing. Her voice, when it finally emerged, was a small, frightened sound that no one was around to hear.

"Human?"

~

You're crying, you're trying so hard now  
You'll be laughing a hundred thousand years  
There is only one day and tonight is the night  
It's a grand illusion

~

Bittersweet Legacy: Human -- bed of nails

~

See the stone set in your eyes  
See the thorn twist in your side  
I wait for you

~

It was a few short hours until dawn by the time Angel made it back to the Hyperion.

"Hard night?"

Angel turned, shutting the door to his and Buffy's room behind him.

"More than one Fyarl," he said heavily, shedding his leather jacket. He followed the sound of Buffy's voice (had there been a hard edge to it, or was his imagination playing tricks on him?) out onto the balcony. She sat, her profile to him, staring out at the Hollywood night. Her gaze wandered to his, and he saw a flash of concern.

"Are you hurt?"

"I'll live," he assured her.

"Right. How could I forget?" Now he was sure of it. Her voice was definitely off; her entire posture was off.

"Is everything all right?"

"Peachy," she said stiffly.

"And you say I'm passive aggressive." He tried to joke, but feared it came out more aggravated.

"Were you ever going to tell me?" She finally looked at him, head on, and he almost wished she hadn't.

"Tell you what?" He definitely had a bad feeling about this.

"About the fact that you're going to be human one day. About how we're going to be back to square one in the whole 'vampires and humans don't make good lovers' argument." Her eyes teared up, and he was certain it wasn't for the first time tonight. "About how you're going to leave me someday."

"Buffy--"

"Just say it's not true." Both her hands clutched the edge of the chair she was sitting in. His chair, he noted dimly, that she must have dragged outside . . . "Please, just tell me it's not true."

He opened his mouth to do just that; to deny everything she was saying, to explain away her fears and her doubts and vow to never leave her, not even by dying. And then--

"I can't do that."

"Were you ever going to tell me?" She leapt to her feet and began pacing. "Or were you just going to let the steady pulse and functioning respiratory system speak for itself?"

"I was going to tell you." He shook his head. "I haven't even . . . so much has happened over the past few months . . . we don't even know if it'll happen . . ." He gestured futilely. "I hadn't really . . . given it much thought. Not in a long time."

"You're going to be human one day, and you haven't given it much thought?!" She sounded completely aghast. "The one thing I would give up =anything= for, and it just slipped your mind?!"

"The promise of what's been foretold in those scrolls nearly pulled me under so far I couldn't tell which way was up." Closing some of the distance between them, he reached his arms out in a calming gesture. "Hope isn't always a good thing, Buffy," he explained quietly. "Sometimes . . . it can destroy you."

She gave off a snort of disgust. "Do you have any idea how sick I am of hearing doom and gloom from you?" she snapped. She hunched over. "'Oh, woe is me, if I admit to myself that I have a demon inside of me, if I try to deal with it in any way that doesn't involve guilt or repression, the world will come to an end.'" Her bad (and incredibly hurtful, as far as he was concerned) impression at an end, she straightened her shoulders. "You can't =wait= to be human," she informed him, "because you can't begin to deal with being a demon. You never could."

"Where the hell do you get off--"

"Oh, =right=, I forgot!" She managed to yell louder than he was. "You're the one who's been a vampire for over two hundred years! You're the one who's supposed to be showing me the ropes on how to deal. Guess what, Angel? I don't see any rope lying around." She folded her arms over her chest angrily. "The only thing you've taught me is how to pretend real hard that I'm still human; to deny that any of the new feelings I have inside of me could possibly be positive, because they're from the demon and must be repressed at all costs." Glaring, she took a menacing step closer to him. "Sorry, Angel, not all of us have a shiny certificate that says someday, if we close our eyes, hold onto a happy thought and get sprinkled with some magic dust, we'll be real boys and girls again."

Exhibiting a Herculean effort, Angel reined in the demonic rage threatening to explode. This was Buffy, acting out of a deep-seated fear of abandonment. Everything inside her was screaming that he would leave her, and he couldn't even assure her that it wouldn't happen. He didn't =want= to leave her, but if the Powers made him human, even if they did find a way to make their lives together work . . . he would have a mortal existence. Death would take him from her . . .

Which was exactly why he'd kept from thinking about it in the first place. It was cowardly, certainly, but with everything he and Buffy had gone through . . . was it really so unfair to crave a few months to simply =be= with her? He wanted to know every part of her, to be secure with her before he took the last skeleton out of the closet, forced her to bear with him the last obstacle that might someday rip them apart.

"I know you're angry," he said quietly, "and I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I just . . . I didn't know how."

His genuine sorrow, the confusion that oozed out of every pore, must have made an impression on her, as he watched her visibly soften.

"I heard it from Cordelia," she enunciated carefully. "=Cordelia=. And the worst part was, she said it like I already knew; like it was a given. And I =should= have known."

"You should have," he agreed honestly. A beat of silence passed between them. Then--

"I'm glad she told me," Buffy said at last. "You never would have."

"That's not--"

"It's true," she insisted. "You didn't know how. You shy away from any discussion of humanity, yours or mine. You don't like to talk about the demons that live inside of us both. I can't . . . Angel, I can't just pretend like it isn't there."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said flatly. But he did. And he felt the old, familiar sting of guilt for lying to her face.

"Despite my impression of a psychotic raging bitch, I'm not trying to pick a fight with you, Angel."

"Well you could've fooled me."

She sighed deeply. "You're always so defensive about this. I just want to =talk= about it and you're closing up right in front of me. There's a demon inside you, and I'm sorry, sweetheart, but that isn't exactly news."

"I know that," he gritted out. "I know what's inside of me. I also know that I have to . . ." A muscle in his jaw twitched, remembering her earlier diatribe, "--=suppress= it as much as possible, because when it gets out--"

"Look, I don't care what you did because Darla was fucking with your brain, or what happened when the demon ran loose without your soul to--"

"It's not just that," he snapped. "Don't you feel it? When you're in a room full of living, breathing people? I know you do. You can feel their blood pumping, rushing through their veins, and there's this part of you screaming to take them." He'd moved closer, bridged some of the physical distance he'd put between them. "You have to feel it."

"Of course I do," she choked out. "But Angel, that's my point. You're denying a part of yourself--"

"That part of me =raped= you!" he burst out.

"And a part of me =liked= it!" she shot back. "Do you think I'm comfortable with that? 'Cause I promise you, I'm not. But I can't just pretend really hard that it isn't there, and hope it suddenly won't be."

"That's not what I do," he denied immediately.

"Isn't it?" she asked softly. "Isn't that part of why you have these occasional meltdowns? Because you spend so much time suppressing a part of yourself that it literally builds and builds until there's nowhere left for you to stuff all that demonic rage down into?"

"What do you suggest I do?" he snapped. "Go out and kill a few people for sport? To blow off steam?"

"Fine, you know, if you're going to treat this like some kind of joke--"

He grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. "Am I supposed to throw you down and treat you like a vampire concubine? Am I supposed to shove you up against a wall and screw you until we're both raw? Do I drain you for the sheer, visceral pleasure of it, then let you curl up in my arms while you regain your strength like we're playing some kind of game?"

She looked up at him bravely. "Maybe," she whispered. "Sometimes."

Their gazes stayed firm for a moment; then he let her arm drop and he backed away from her, shaking his head.

"You don't mean that," he said stiffly.

"Would you PLEASE stop telling me what I do and do not mean?" she snapped, placing her hands on her hips. "I'm not an idiot. I know what I feel, and unlike SOME people in this room, I'm not going to deny a part of myself because it scares me."

"That part of yourself ATE your family!" he practically screamed.

Buffy reeled back as if he'd hit her. His sorrow for saying it washed over his face instantly, and he moved to hold her. She stepped back further, and held out a hand, putting an abrupt halt to his forward momentum.

"You think it's wrong that I feel any of this." Her words were cold; there was only a slight edge of hysteria coloring her tone.

"Not wrong," he hedged. "You can't control what you feel; =neither= of us can," he added.

Gesturing, she made it clear that she was sick of him walking around the big fanged elephant in the room.

"Fine, but you think it's wrong that I think we should try . . . being freer when we're alone." Her expression turned pleading. "Just when we're alone, Angel, not when other people could get hurt--"

"I could hurt =you=," he cried, moving toward her again. He brought a shaky hand up to her face; cupped her cheek gently in his palm. "I've hurt you so much . . . I can't . . . I can't stand the thought of causing you any more pain. And . . .I know you hate it when I do this, but Buffy, you haven't lived with being a vampire for very long. You don't know how it eats at you--"

"No, you know what, =I= can't do this anymore." She pulled away from his touch, and from his words. "I can't listen to you tell me what I feel for another second. Maybe you're right. Maybe I don't know the full extent of what it is to be a vampire with a soul. But at least I'm not hiding my head in the sand. At least I'm =trying= to figure it out, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for you."

"You've been a vampire with a soul for six months," he said flatly. "I've lived with this for a century. You did a lot of damage your first week out; more than most of the newly risen. I always knew you'd be deadly like that; that only your beautiful heart, the selfless soul I've always seen inside of you, kept it under control.

"I never had that, as a human being. The only thing that even remotely stood out about me was how unremarkable I was; how incredibly good I was at disappointing my father, and everyone else around me. After I became a vampire, do you know what I found out I was good at, Buffy?"

She shook her head mutely.

"Doing damage. Doing the worst kind of damage there was. At first, I went about it the way every vampire does. Rape, rob, and pillage. Later, I grew bored with all that. You don't inflict real pain on people by killing them. The only real agony we suffer is that of the mind, and of the heart. Damage the spirit, and you've destroyed a person without ever lifting a finger.

"It makes the blood taste sweeter, too, that hint of desperation when they've nearly hit rock bottom. I became a master, to the point that I could flavor my victim's blood the exact pitch I craved in the moment. For a hundred and fifty years I exalted in the evil I had become."

"This is different," she insisted stubbornly. "You said so yourself. You were soulless. After you regained your soul--"

"After I regained my soul," he cut her off coldly, "I tried to be that again." That had surprised her, and he continued, softer, "I couldn't. I wasn't what I had been, before the change, but I didn't feel it then. It wasn't until I saw you, until I wanted to help, to keep you safe, that I really felt even a fraction of everything that I was to become. I help people, Buffy. I save them. The most worthless drunk to ever come out of my tiny little village, and I've saved the world. A couple of times.

"But that monster is still inside me. It's still waiting for me to let my guard down, even a little bit. It doesn't take a shoddy gypsy curse to turn me into a killer, Buffy. That killer is with me every day. That killer tied you down and raped you and left me the memory, so that I could 'enjoy' it for the rest of my eternity."

Buffy stared up at him for a long beat. Big tears were gathered in her eyes, but she wasn't shedding them. Her tongue came out to wet her dry lips, and she took a deep, unnecessary breath.

"You hate that part of yourself," she said quietly. "You don't see it as another entity at all, do you?" Now, the tears did fall. "I always thought you did. Angel and Angelus. It helped me . . . in the beginning, when I couldn't even begin to deal with all these memories I had, all these feelings that ran so opposite anything I'd ever dealt with before. At my bitchiest, I'd never felt as bad as I did without a soul. Only I couldn't feel it then.

"You don't really see yourself as separate, though, do you? And that's . .. that's why you can't forgive yourself. Because what you did, couldn't be forgiven."

His gaze was nailed to the floor, and she moved toward him, placing a hand on his forearm. He flinched, but raised his head to look her in the eye. His mouth opened, then closed, as though he didn't know what to say. She squeezed his arm in support. He nodded his head, once, jerkily.

"Yes," he said hoarsely.

"And you hate that part of me, too," Buffy confirmed quietly.

His gaze shot to hers, and his head began shaking in automatic denial. "No, Buffy, you couldn't--"

"You don't =want= to hate me," she insisted, "but you do. Just a little." The tears fell a little harder, and she laughed bitterly. "Just enough."

"Buffy--"

"No, it's good," she said, licking the tears that fell to her mouth away. "Because one day, you're going to be human, and you're going to leave me, and you won't have to be reminded of all those things you did when you didn't have a soul. Because that's what you see every time you look at me now. You see all of the horrible things you've ever done."

"I don't," he insisted heatedly, moving toward her again. She shook off his hold. "Damn it, Buffy--"

"Then why won't you even =consider= the idea that your way isn't the best way?!" she cried. "You've never been in a relationship with someone who was =exactly= like you before. We never had to deal with the vampire sex issue, because sex was a big red circle with a line through it for us. That isn't the case anymore, and we BOTH have . . . urges that go beyond the normal, human desire to make love. It doesn't make us evil to admit that we have these feelings--"

((show me your world I brought you a present a gypsy girl you're too good to me maybe we shouldn't shh just kiss me I won't let you die not when I can save you drink I don't want a man I want a demon I want you))

"I can't do this," he said abruptly. "I can't talk to you right now."

She stared at him like he'd sprouted horns and started doing a jig.

"What?"

((get away get away get away before you hurt her again you're going to hurt her you were BORN to hurt her))

The demon was close to the surface; much closer than she knew, closer than she could even imagine. Vampires matured with age. Granted, she had been a natural, but she still hadn't had the time to grow into her new skin, before she'd been shoved back down into the old one. Neither fit her, and she was trying to find her identity, and he was supposed to help her, but he didn't know how, not when it had all happened again, not when he'd just killed one of his best friends and done irreparable damage to another, not when he'd hurt Buffy in the only way he'd previously managed not to yet.

How could she possibly not understand? The demon raged for her blood, both because she represented its imprisonment, and because it recognized her as its mate, in every way, now that she, too, had a demon of her own. He wanted to claw into her, to tear her with fangs and mark her again and again as his own. The faded scar she bore on her throat did nothing to satisfy this burning imperative.

And he was supposed to just let that free? Just . . . let go of the hard won control that it had taken him a century to build?

What if he couldn't get it back? What if the Chinese Blessing didn't hold, and his soul somehow loosened itself from its tethers and just . . . floated away? He knew, should that happen, he would find a way to turn Buffy, as well, and his worst nightmare ((darkest dream)) would at last be upon them.

There was no doubt in his mind that, given the time, he and Buffy would dance on the ashes of everything their souls had held dear.

To him, that was the best case scenario. The worst case involved destroying Buffy's psyche more than it already had been. He was convinced she hadn't completely healed from the rape -- mostly because she refused to view it as such -- and this desire of hers was like a cry for help. It had to be.

And he was too much of a monster to even take her in his arms, and rock her. Because if he touched her right now, if he inhaled her and smelled her demon's lust that so matched his own . . .

"I can't be around you right now," he said again, clearly. "Go . . . go find Willow. I don't want you to be alone."

"I don't want Willow," she said, that hurt look crossing her face ((better she's hurt like this than hurt in a way that won't heal)), "I want =you=."

"I'm not good for you right now," he ground out. He moved to walk around her, and she got in his way. Stood her ground when he tried to physically move her aside. "Get out of the way, Buffy."

"Make me." She glared at him, demonic rage flickering behind her hazel eyes. They never flickered gold, the way she'd told him his did in moments of supreme rage. She looked utterly, delectably human until the change came over her completely. She leaned in toward him; sniffed at his neck, the gesture so blatantly animal that an unconscious growl left his mouth.

Her tongue darted out, and she laved at the pulse point that once would have beat with his life; worried the skin between her blunt teeth until she had him hard as a rock, shaking with the effort he was exerting to keep his hands off of her.

((take her, hurt her, she wants you to, she's begging you to, show her who she belongs to, claim her the way you know you're supposed to))

Growling, he roughly shoved her away from him. He. Would. Not. Treat her like a vampire whore. He had already done enough damage.

"We're demons," she said clearly. "I don't like it, but I also can't fight it. Why do you keep fighting it?"

"We have demons inside of us, but we're not," he said weakly.

"Is that what you tell yourself?" She stalked up to him again. "I hate to break this to you, baby, but we =are= demons and it's way past time we started acting like it."

"What do you suggest?" he snapped. "Killing innocent people? Burning cities to the ground? Because that's what vampires do!"

Her fist flew so fast, he didn't have time to block her. She cracked his lip open and the fists he'd been making tightened until he felt the knuckles crack.

((you hit me not to go all schoolyard on you but you hit me first you did it for her))

He would not hit her again. Not ever again. And if he spent another minute looking into her stormy eyes, her cheeks that no longer flamed with her righteous indignation . . . he would do more than hit her. He would show her what a Sire did to a Childe that demanded and pleaded so prettily; would make the darkest fantasies he'd had about her into the reality she apparently craved so much.

And that was something he could not allow himself.

He stormed out of their bedroom without looking back.

~

Sleight of hand and twist of fate  
On a bed of nails she makes me wait  
And I wait without you

~

"Again."

"Do you think maybe you've had enou--"

"I said, 'again.'"

The steel in her voice obviously did the trick. He poured her another shot, then left the bottle of ancient Irish whiskey on the bar, scurrying away to attend to other, less menacing looking customers.

Buffy didn't care. There was nothing she particularly cared about at the moment beyond getting so drunk that she couldn't think anymore, couldn't feel this numbing pain.

Angel had rejected her; again. He had looked at everything she was, everything she was offering, and somehow found her wanting. She was too much like him now, too much like a monster for him to want. Fucking hypocrite. She'd loved him in spite of ((because of)) everything that he was. It had never mattered to her, not like it did to him. All she wanted was a little understanding, some space to grow, to help =him= grow and he couldn't ((wouldn't)) give that little bit.

Screw him, she thought blearily, shot number . . . well, it was in the double digits, at least. Her constitution hadn't been very high before she was turned and she found that immortality hadn't done anything for her resistance to alcohol. Everything was already growing pleasantly fuzzy. Even the deep, demonic rage toward Angel was mellowing.

However, as the rage began to temper, Buffy noticed another, more primal emotion: hunger. It built, not in her belly, but in the borrowed blood that animated her dead flesh, and no, she had never felt anything like this when she was alive. The hunger was a powerful wave sweeping away everything but desire in its wake. Desire, not just for blood, but for . . . satisfaction. Sex, death, hunger -- since her transformation, Buffy had noticed the three were almost synonymous at times, especially when she hadn't fed for too long.

Of course, she'd never mentioned it to Angel. She had known exactly how he would react, and that knowledge, however subconscious, had kept her silent about the intense urges she experienced. Tonight, he had proven her insubstantial fears valid. His rejection somehow managed to cut deeper than anything else ever had, even his own abandonment so soon after her high school graduation.

That event had devastated her, but at least then, she'd had something to cling to. There were friends, a sacred duty, the fate of the world. Now what did she have? Only him, and she sickened him. He would be human one day, he would become that perfect imperfection he'd craved for longer than she had been alive, and he would leave her for some sunshine girl she could barely recall being.

They would have children, beautiful little brown haired brown eyed boys and girls. He would give them Irish names and tell them bedtime stories they'd never know were true. His wife would adore him, as any sane woman would, and he would make love to her with a pounding heart, sweaty palms and uneven breath. Their darkness and pain would be over petty, human jealousies, and every once in awhile, basking in the sunshine of his everyday, he would spare a thought for the Slayer-cum-souled-vampire he had left behind in the dark.

((Loneliness is just about the scariest thing there is.))

"Fuck you," she mumbled into her shot glass before she tipped it back.

He knew about loneliness; even better than she did. He knew it, and yet somehow, he still didn't fear it the way that she did. A hundred years, wandering and alone, and he still didn't fear it like Buffy. Death was preferable to having no one at all, which, she mused, was probably why she hadn't minded the thought of dying too much over the past two years: she had been alone since he left her.

It wasn't just his departure that broke her; she wouldn't give him that much credit. It was everything that happened with Faith, the betrayal of her sister Slayer, a betrayal that still ran deeper than anything Angel had ever done, could ever do, even if he went out and got himself a pulse. Faith deadened something inside of Buffy, something that might have come to life again had what remained of her heart not been torn out, only to vanish with Angel into a smoky night.

Surrounded by concerned faces, beloved friends, Buffy had felt the intense desire to scream. Didn't they see? Couldn't they tell? Wasn't there a big sign on her face that said 'I'm different now.' Had it not been for Dawn's appearance in her life, Buffy wasn't sure she would have had any reason to live at all.

And now . . . now there was no Dawn. There was no Mom. Willow and Xander could try, but things would never be the same between them, ever again, for the things that she had done, and by the simple fact of what she was. Giles claimed that he wasn't disappointed in her, but at the moment, Buffy couldn't bring herself to believe him. The half a bottle she'd consumed so far no doubt aided her self-pity, but she certainly didn't recognize that at the moment. All she knew was that no one in her life would ever be there, forever, no matter what.

Which brought her nicely back to Angel, the one person who =was= supposed to be there forever, in the most literal sense of the word. She'd given him everything she had inside of her -- her virginity, her life, her soul -- and he didn't want any of it. It meant nothing to him if it shattered his pretty illusions of demon and man and where he fit into it all.

He made it sound like she =liked= the demon inside of her. She didn't, of course, but she also recognized that it was a part of her now, just like the less flattering sides to her nature she had learned to accept. This was just a new facet to adapt to, but he was so caught up in his guilt and his self-hatred that he couldn't . . .

Her face felt wet and she realized she was crying. Again. Great, she thought, nice to know he can still make me cry. The feel of his arms around her was imagined, and she glanced up in the mirror above the bar to find herself not there. That still tripped her out, but thankfully, no one else seemed to notice.

((Buffy, come home. You're being ridiculous, we had a fight, we can work it out, we can work anything out--))

"Go to hell, Angel," she slurred to the voice in her head. "And =stay= there this time."

"My, my, someone's out for blood, aren't they?"

Buffy jumped a little, glancing quickly at the mirror, then to her left. Spike. Her night was complete now.

"Go 'way," she mumbled, knocking back another shot. If she finished the bottle, would she be able to erase the imprints Angel's hands had left on her skin?

"You look more heroin-chic suicical than usual, pet," he said casually. "Any particular reason?"

"My whole world is over," she answered honestly.

"Right. Think that might be overstatin' matters a bit?"

"Angel's going to be human someday," she said with a sickly little smile. "Prophecy says so."

"Well, that's right inconsiderate of him, isn't it?" Spike said dully. Buffy thought he might have been a little shocked and it felt good; Spike wasn't an easy guy to shock. "'Course," he added, "prophecy once said you were gonna end up dead and look how that turned out."

"I didn't want to die," Buffy said sadly, "but Angel wants to be human." More tears. "More than anything," she added in a pained whisper. "More than me."

"Then he is a fool," Spike said, his tone precise and impassioned.

Looking Spike straight in the eye, Buffy felt something inside of her lurch. It might have been her heart, had it not been shattered into a thousand different pieces. Spike . . . he would never be human. He would never leave and he could never break her heart because she would never love him.

And he could make the hunger go away.

Before she could change her fogged mind, Buffy leaned over and pressed her lips to Spike's. His hands were all over her in seconds flat and she was hauled half into his lap while they mauled each other's mouths. He was already hard, and Buffy pressed her palm to his crotch, eliciting a growl from his throat.

"I don't want to be here anymore," she mumbled against his mouth.

Without another word, he grabbed her arm and she stumbled behind him as they left the bar.

~

And you give yourself away  
And you give yourself away  
And I wait without you  
With or without you  
With or without you

~

Contrary to popular opinion, Angel wasn't oblivious to the signals Buffy had always sent out to him.

There had been her 'I know we're natural enemies, but I don't really want you to stay away from me, I want you to kiss me' vibes. Her 'I'm acting like a total bitch but =please= just ignore that and kiss me' vibes, which segued nicely into her 'kissing me is no longer enough, I need more' vibes. And who could forget her 'I know you just spent an eternity in hell and I'm telling you I've moved on but I'm lying please don't believe me please just hold me make me stay' vibes?

Those were the vibes that haunted him most. Even then, she'd always wanted him to take control of their relationship. She hadn't been prepared to make the hard decisions, and instead of giving into her desires, he'd tried to give into what she needed. Leaving her, it had seemed then, was the only thing he could do. His other option was taking her up on the invitation in her eyes, and, then, tumbling her into bed for a week had been the road sign on a one-way express trip into Hell.

What she was asking of him now . . . he could give her. Assuming it didn't fly in the face of every decision that he had made since first regaining possession of his soul.

Sitting in the garden, inhaling the smell of roses, Angel went over his mental Rolodex of rules.

Rule #1: Don't get too close to humans.

Rule #2: Keep your fangs to yourself and don't feed on a living human being.

Rule #3: Avoid other vampires like the plague, because whatever your animal drive tells you, you aren't one of them.

It should have come as no great surprise to him that each and every one of his 'cardinal' rules had been tossed out the window the very first time he caught a glimpse of Buffy.

Another 'rule' had popped into his head from the moment he'd realized Buffy would be spending her immortality at his side -- they would not give into their baser desires. The idea of feeding from her, from his mate, of having her drink him in return . . . the idea was enough to harden every inch of his body, and cause his demon to howl with longing.

Didn't she understand that the temptation alone could swallow them both whole? If they actually gave in, if they explored their natures too deeply . . .

Well, it could swallow the =world= whole.

There was a demon inside of him, but he was not a demon. It had become like a mantra for him over the past six years. How else did she think he could go on? The things he'd done, the atrocities his hands had committed . . . it =had= to be another entity. An entity he was responsible for, one that he controlled, but something separate from himself.

Buffy was unable to understand that because her own demon hadn't formed a dual personality. She'd only been without a soul for a few short weeks and in that time, though she'd wreaked a lot of havoc, she hadn't . . . couldn't she understand that the deaths of her family were the very tip of the iceberg for all that she might have become? There was real evil inside of them both. It wasn't a game they could play with safe words and fuzzy handcuffs.

He needed to be more understanding with her. He had to retain more control when they spoke, he needed to make sure she knew that whatever she needed to say to him, that he wouldn't judge her. There was nothing inside of her that he couldn't love, though he had to admit that she did have a point: he was decidedly uncomfortable with her demon, but no more so than he was with his own.

Look what had happened when he'd . . . grown complacent about his existence. He thought of Giles, pointing a crossbow at his heart, thought of Jenny, the sound her neck had made as it snapped in his grip . . .he thought of Buffy, the look on her face when he told her he thought she was a pro, and again, after she'd shoved that sword through his heart . . .

All that pain . . .all that destruction . . . all because of the thing inside of him, the thing she wanted him to get used to like a bad temper. The trivial attitude she assigned to their states of being both angered and frightened him. Buffy would never hurt anyone knowingly, but the demon inside of her was another matter. She was strong, stronger than anyone he'd ever known, but she'd never had a devil quite so persuasive sitting on her shoulder before, whispering desires into her ear.

And, he admitted shamefully, he'd never kept something quite so vitally important from her before.

The lie of omission he'd told her had been unconscious and without malice. There had been a simple genesis in his subconscious: Buffy had forever and he would have it with her. Prophecies unfulfilled, teases of humanity . . . it hadn't seemed to matter in the face of all he and Buffy had left to resolve between them.

From the moment Wesley had translated it, a part of Angel had viewed Shanshu as nothing more than a pipe dream, a fruitless pursuit to give him enough hope to keep up the good fight. But after that fateful encounter with the good demon he'd mistakenly killed, Angel had put even the distant hope of humanity out of his mind. His epiphany after the fiasco with Darla had cinched it -- there would be nothing beyond the moment, beyond the right now. Concentrate on the little things and . . . don't get so caught up in the big picture that you miss the details.

Angel sat back on the ground by Anya's bush, stunned at his own stupidity.

Earlier he'd been so consumed by fear, so terrified of the big bad consequences that he'd let all the gentle, important details get swept away. Buffy had opened herself to him, her whole self to him, and he had rejected her. A test, a true test of their relationship, and he had failed. They both had.

He wouldn't take all the blame. Not anymore. She had handled things badly, hadn't thought them out nearly as well as she should have . . . but he could have at least listened. Maybe she had a point. Maybe it was ridiculous of him to believe they could go through the rest of forever together denying so much of who they were.

Agree with her or not, he owed her an apology for freaking out on her and especially for lacking the control to stay in the room and finish things. She'd just completely thrown him after the fight with the Fyarls . . . Angel glanced at his watch. It had been over an hour since he'd left her in their bedroom. He would go upstairs, he would apologize, and they would talk things out calmly and openly. He would make sure she understood that there was nothing she couldn't say to him, even if he reacted badly, it would still be okay . . .

He rehearsed what he would say in his head all the way upstairs, was still rehearsing, in fact, when he found their room completely empty. A terrible ache made its presence known in his chest and his voice, when it finally came, sounded quiet and far away.

"Buffy?"

~

Through the storm we reach the shore  
You give it all but I want more  
And I'm waiting for you  
With or without you

~

There weren't too many truly perfect situations given out by fate and Spike was damn sure not going to waste this one.

Angel had been stalking down the hallway until he caught sight of Spike. He'd almost cartoonishly done an about face, heading in the opposite direction. Spike smirked. He knew how Angel felt. Time was, he would have done the same.

But not today. Today . . . today, everything was about to change.

"Buffy's fine," he called out to Angel's rapidly retreating back. The old bastard paused, and Spike's grin intensified. It would almost be too easy . . . "Probably still passed out on the bed where I left her."

Yes, that definitely hit a nerve. Angel turned slowly and there was a growl building in his chest, the likes of which Spike hadn't heard in over a century. Oh, yes, this was definitely the moment. It would all be over soon.

"Don't worry," Spike continued, hoping it didn't happen =too= soon. He wanted it done, but not before he'd gutted Angel right proper. "I made sure the curtains were closed. Slutty lives to shag another--" He would have continued, but Angel's hand wrapped vice-like around his throat made it difficult. Damn but he was spry for an old bugger . . .

Angel snarled, "If I find out you touched her--"

"Oh, I touched her all right, mate." Every leering fantasy he'd ever had about Buffy played through Spike's mind as he stared into Angel's demonic eyes. Ponce was already half-crazed. It would be so easy to push him over the edge . . .

Because that was exactly what Spike wanted. To push Angel over the edge, to invite final death into his own unlife and end an existence that had gone on two years too long. He loved two girls desperately and neither one would ever love him back. The black beauty who'd obsessed him for two centuries had cast him out back when he'd still had a pair; now, with love in his heart for not one, but two pure, beautiful girls . . .

He wasn't demon enough for the dark princess who made him, not human enough for the little witch who trusted him, not soulful enough for the perfect goddess the bastard before him was so fucking besotted with . . . Can't hunt, can't kill . . .

What was there, really, left to live for?

((ah, yes. this.))

"She's got the softest skin," Spike croaked. "You'd know, of course. And that little birthmark on the dip of her left hip--" Again, he would have continued, but it was damned hard to keep a coherent train of thought when you're sailing through the air.

Spike shook his head, opened his mouth to say more, or maybe to get a last look at Angel before someone finally took him out of this world. Something, anyway, before eternal darkness wrapped its cool, comforting arms around him.

But the hallway was empty.

"What does it fucking TAKE?!" Spike yelled at the ceiling.

~

And I'm waiting for you  
With or without you  
I can't live  
With or without you

~

"Woah! Angel, watch where you're going!"

Angel only snarled in response as he helped Willow to her feet.

"You're grouchy," Willow grumbled, brushing herself off.

"Are you all right?" Angel snapped.

"Fine," Willow snapped back. She looked at him carefully, trying to remember the last time she'd seen him this . . . wrong. Not a single occasion came to mind, not even when Buffy had been -- different. Then, he'd just been so sad, so desperately, horribly sad. Now . . . "Angel, what's wrong?

"Ask Spike," he growled, barreling down the hallway. He flung the door to his room open, then slammed it behind him.

Disturbed, Willow turned to find Cordelia or someone else who might be able to talk to Angel--

\--and ran face first into Wesley's chest.

"Oh! Sorry!"

"What on earth is all that racket?" Wesley asked, glancing around her down the hall.

"Angel's all growly," Willow answered, frowning. "Something's wrong, but he won't say what." She paused, then added petulantly, "Maybe I don't =want= to ask Spike."

Wesley puffed up before her eyes. "We straightened this out months ago. When he's having a crisis, he's not to bottle it up. He needs to know that he can share his trials with us, for his own good as well as ours." Wesley sighed in a very put upon way and Willow had to contain the urge to laugh. "I'll go and talk to him."

"I don't know if that's such a good idea, Wes," Willow said, placing a hand on his arm. "Maybe Cordy or someone he's less likely to throw through a window--"

"Nonsense," Wesley insisted. "Angel would never harm me, and whatever it is that's bothering him, it'll seem better after he's gotten it off of his chest."

That thought firmly in mind, Willow watched Wesley stride up to Angel and Buffy's door, open it, and shut it gently behind him. A few seconds passed, and just as Willow was about to admit that maybe Wesley was right, after all, the door flew open, Wesley rushed out and slammed it behind him. A loud "crash" of something shattering against the door sounded a moment later.

Wesley paused, then straightened, nodded wisely to Willow, and declared, "Best to give him a bit of space for now."

"At least he's not bottling," Willow offered hopefully.

~

My hands are tied  
My body bruised, she's got me with  
Nothing to win and  
Nothing left to lose  
~

Bittersweet Legacy: Grace -- misery made beautiful

~

make me a witness  
take me out  
out of darkness  
out of doubt  
i won't weigh you down  
with good intention  
won't make fire out of clay

~

Their bedroom was supposed to be a haven.

The thought wouldn't leave Buffy alone as she stared at the big, imposing door before her. She could feel him beyond the barrier, feel his rage and his hurt; pictured him like a great, wounded animal, huddled in on himself, ready to strike out.

It should have been her job to comfort him; instead, she was the cause of his pain.

He doesn't know, she tried to tell herself. He's just worried because you left ((like an immature kid just like before is that the only thing you know how to do, buff, just run away?)) without telling him.

Except something deep down in Buffy's gut told her that that wasn't it at all.

He can't know, she insisted.

((i would know.))

Her eyes shut tightly in shame. Yes, she would know. And he would be man enough to come to her afterwards.

Buffy's hand found the doorknob and she stepped through the archway before she could stop herself. The room was dark, oppressively so, and her nostrils scented blood and alcohol.

Angel sat in the corner, his profile to her, in the same chair she'd dragged out onto the balcony earlier. His left arm hung to the side of his chair, his hand clutching a tumbler half full of a thick, dark liquid. Buffy suspected some sort of bourbon and O-Pos cocktail. He must have known the second she entered the room -- would have, in fact, felt her in the hall -- but he gave no indication.

There was nothing but taut silence between them. His eyes were hidden from her in the shadows, and she wasn't sure if that relieved her or disturbed her. She'd always been able to read him by looking into his eyes, but right now, she wasn't sure she wanted to see what was there.

"Nothing happened," she said ((liar)) quietly, though her voice caught on a sob.

The sound of glass shattering made her jump, and he'd moved so fast she had to guess that he'd thrown his drink against the wall. He was standing now, his back to her, his hands shoved into his pockets.

"I'd say it was a little more than nothing," he replied softly. Dangerously . . .

"Angel," she began hesitantly.

"You've been gone for nearly two days," he said icily. "The first day, I was wondering if you were dead. I was half-crazed over what I'd said to you that made you run so far from me . . . And then Spike came back. Gave me quite an earful."

"And you believe =Spike=," she spat.

"Not normally," he agreed, then finally turned his face into the light, and oh, God, she'd been right, she didn't want to see his eyes right now. "But I could smell you on him. All over him."

"It isn't what you think," she whispered, and there were tears running down her cheeks now, and it only seemed to make him angrier.

Again, he moved too fast for her muddled brain to track him, and before she knew it, his hands were wrapped tightly around her upper arms, and he was shaking her harder than he ever had; harder than when he'd been soulless.

"What am I supposed to think, Buffy? Am I supposed to think that we had a fight, we said some hurtful things to one another, and instead of facing me, you went out and fucked Spike?"

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her sobs intensifying as she dug her nails into his chest. His grip only tightened, and she was glad for it. It hurt, but so long as he held onto her, there was hope. There was always hope with him, how had she forgotten that?

"How could you . . ." His voice was quiet again, that deathly, pained quiet he got sometimes when it would take strength he didn't have to yell. Her sobs intensified at being the cause of such quiet in him.

"I'm so sorry, I screwed up, I'm sorry, I love you so much," she whispered again and again between loud, hitching sobs. Somehow, her mouth found his and, though he was resistant, he began to kiss her back. Angry, violent kisses that she welcomed the way she'd always welcomed all of him.

A split second later, her back was pressed against the wall and he was ripping the clothes from her body. It was like he was possessed, only he was still her Angel, as his mouth moved over her throat, her collarbones, licking and sucking and biting at her flesh. Her underwear, he balled up and threw into the wastebasket.

"Those," he whispered roughly into her ear, "we burn later."

He fell to his knees before her, spread her legs apart and attacked her wet flesh with single-minded determination. He was vamped out, and his ridged forehead bumped against her as he sought out her pleasure with lips and tongue and fangs. The unrestrained violence vibrating beneath the surface of him set off a chain reaction inside her body, spoke to the demon that lived and howled inside her skin, and she came for him in the space of a heartbeat she didn't have.

With hurried desperation, his mouth made the journey back up her body, stopping along the way to suckle at her nipples in turn, pulling at them so hard, a scream caught in her throat and her hands gripped his hair with white-knuckled intensity. That seemed to make him angrier, and he grabbed her wrists; pinned them at her sides as he attacked her mouth again.

The fact that he was still fully clothed was not lost on her, and she dared to slip her wrists from his grasp; brought her hands to the hem of his sweater; warily lifted her gaze to the blazing yellow of his eyes. There was no demand to stop in his expression, so she slipped the black pullover from his body and tossed it aside; moved her hands to his belt and rid him of it, his pants, and his boxers with superhuman speed.

His hands moved to her face, cupped her cheeks with a grip that might have scared her, once upon a time, when she'd been girlish and stupid. This possessiveness, this dangerous, wild intensity . . . this was what she'd wanted from him. This was what she'd longed for, part of what they'd fought about earlier, part of why she'd fled to that goddamn bar. This was everything she'd never thought he'd be able to give her, because he was too afraid -- too guilty -- to tap into it.

"You belong to me," he practically growled. Her hands covered his wrists, smoothed along his forearms, then moved back to his where they still rested over her cheeks.

"Yes," she whispered, closing her eyes as his mouth descended on hers.

He believed she'd given her body to someone else; was convinced that she'd let Spike crawl between her legs and fuck her the way he'd wanted to for years. Angel believed that with every fiber of his being, and he was still willing to claim her, to press these bruising, longed for kisses to her lips, to rake his fingers through her hair, and grip her hips with his palms so tight, she'd be marked by it if she were human.

"Mine," he growled into her ear as his hands lifted her off the ground, slid her back up the wall so they were even with one another now, so she could feel how hard he was against her hip.

"Yes," she moaned again, reaching between them for his cock, rubbing the tip with her thumb as she stroked him with slow, firm movements.

Batting her gentle caress away, he thrust inside her with no preliminaries, and his hands held hers, their arms stretched wide out to the side. The only thing pinning her to the wall was his hips, his huge, strong chest, and the force of his mouth on hers. She wrapped her legs high around his back until she could cross her ankles. In this position, with him holding her hands so tightly, she was helpless, and she loved it, loved the fact that she =could= love it, that even after everything she still felt safe ((never hurt me unless I want him to feels good more god more hurt me cherish me punish me love me)) with him.

Thrusting into her brutally, he began moving his mouth over her neck, her shoulders, licking and biting every inch of skin he could reach. Shallow wounds opened, tiny rivers of blood began to flow, and he licked those up, too, as he pounded her into the wall hard enough to crack the plaster.

Small, inarticulate little cries left her mouth as he varied the speed and angle of his hips against hers. Coherency had left the building the moment he'd moved inside her, and all she was left with now was the pounding, her head against the wall, his hips against hers, the way he wasn't pulling out of her at all now, he was staying so deep and just grinding his hips harder and faster than should have been humanly possible, but then he wasn't human and neither was she, thank God because if she were human, this wouldn't feel. So. Damn. Good.

Then, suddenly, it stopped. He had pulled out of her and she was crumpling to the floor and she was so unfulfilled, so needy, teetering on the edge, about to fall over . . .

. . . and then he was there again, pressed against her back, one arm slung around her chest to pull her to him roughly. Down on her knees, she spread her legs wide, arching against him, begging him with a series of animal keening noises.

"Shh," he soothed into her ear, crudely cupping her pelvis in his hand, tilting her to the angle he wanted. Finally, he was inside her again, where he belonged, and the new position had her spasming around him the moment she had him back.

His now blunt teeth clenched down on her shoulder as he began to thrust in a slow, punishing rhythm. One hand braced their weight on the floor, the other continued to cup her; not caressing, not tantalizing -- possessing.

Buffy's nails dug into the floor; ripped up some of the carpet. An almost constant wail escaped her throat, pitched perfectly against the deeply primal grunts he made around her flesh. His chest against her back created friction, and she moved closer, craved more, brought one of her hands down to rest on his against the floor. Their fingers twined together and his thrusts grew more frenzied, erratic but still brutal.

A loud, primal scream ((ecstasyagonypleasurepainbliss)) left her mouth as his fangs grew and -- almost effortlessly -- slipped into her neck. He drew deeply from her, growled and snarled as he fed and came and somehow managed to almost make her feel clean again as his cold seed filled her dead, clenching womb.

Once rational thought returned to her again, the sobbing started anew, and he released his hold on her long enough for her to turn around and wrap both arms around his shoulders, her legs around his waist as he knelt on the floor. And his beautiful arms wrapped around her body, and he cradled her against him as he nuzzled the mark on her throat, licked the wound closed and rocked her, God, after everything, he was still rocking her so gently.

The next thing she felt was the ice-cold texture of the bathroom sink. He was filling the big claw foot tub with hot water and bubbles, stripping what was left of his clothes off, and that only made the tears worse, because he was going to make her clean again.

She didn't protest as he picked her up and sat down in the tub with her. Instead, she curled into his lap, wrapped herself around him as tightly as was physically possible, and hoped for the strength to tell him all the things he needed to hear.

~

will we burn in heaven  
like we do down here  
will the change come  
while we're waiting  
everyone is waiting

~

It burned through her like a fever.

There was a motel -- one of those places that rented rooms by the hour -- next to the bar. Spike had them checked in and through the doorway of room #7 before she'd been able to fully process that they weren't in the bar anymore.

His mouth on hers had been cool and possessive, craving her the same way it craved cigarettes and God, how she'd needed to feel that.

Spike's hands had always had minds of their own, but at the time, they'd seemed intent on blazing the newest trails in the fastest amount of time. One slid under her top to palm a breast, the other moved over the crotch of her pants, rubbing in a way that made her moan and cringe at the same time.

This was so wrong.

As he walked them over to the bed the words wouldn't leave her mind. As he inched her top off so he could lick at her breasts like the runt of the litter finally getting a teat, they got louder.

And when his hand slipped down the front of her pants, his fingers already busy seeking out her pleasure -- the volume of those words would have shattered glass.

Her denial was a powerful opponent, though. It did brave battle with her heart, the same heart that, at the very moment, had been slowly dying inside her chest. It did not beat, but it =lived= and this act was a betrayal of all it held dear.

Sure, this was wrong, but so was everything Angel denied her. When he turned human, that, too, would be wrong, and when he left her . . . surely this betrayal would somehow counteract that betrayal so that she would not be as badly hurt, as she knew for certain that she would be.

Then there were Spike's lips again, and he was whispering against her mouth, something that sounded like 'What's wrong, luv?' which was ridiculous, because she wanted this, she wanted it, she . . .

. . . was crying, silently, constantly crying and her body had ceased to be responsive to his. Instead, it was curling up on itself and the tears weren't silent anymore, they were great, racking sobs and =what= was =wrong= with her?

"I-- I can't," she gasped out between sobs.

The fever had broken.

There was sadness on his face, but it was resigned sadness. "I know," he murmured. "Can't blame a bloke for hoping, though. Thought maybe the temporary insanity would last a bit longer."

She let him hold her for a moment, then realized that even that felt like a betrayal. Launching herself off the bed, she hurriedly pulled her clothes together.

"Pet," he murmured, "sun'll be up soon. Just stay 'til it goes down again--"

"I can't stay here with you," she muttered. If she'd been human, she would have had to run into the bathroom to throw up. As it was, her insides felt as though they'd turned to dust.

"Angelus will be a lot more put out with you if you go and get yourself killed, deprivin' him of the joy of brooding over this latest bump in your tragic love story."

Her gaze was drawn to the bed, to Spike, his shirt ripped open, the first button on his jeans undone . . . God, what had she almost done? What had she =done=?

The 'fuck-it' attitude a bottle of bourbon had given her was fast fleeing. Nothing but the cold, hard truth remained and her heart took that moment to let itself be known -- I'm here! I'm alive! You're a selfish, stupid demon with a soul and you've just destroyed the one good thing in your whole un-life! He'll never forgive you for this and he'll leave you long before humanity takes him away!

Tearing her gaze from the bed, Buffy bolted out of the room.

~

and when we're done  
soul searching  
as we carried the weight  
and died for the cause  
is misery  
made beautiful  
right before our eyes

~

". . . and then I got a room in the same motel and waited out the sun."

They were both silent after her disclosure. The faucet of the tub dripped every few seconds and Buffy was sure the only reason she didn't lose her mind was the pressure of his legs against hers.

It was not a large tub, and he was definitely a large man. They sat facing each other, backs pressed against either end of the bathtub, legs folded together in the middle. Hers were draped over his, and her feet just barely reached his hip. It would have been a terribly romantic situation, were it not for the matter they were discussing.

"I'm sorry," she whispered again. "I didn't want him, I never wanted anyone but you, I was just so . . ."

"Hurt?" he offered, and she sensed . . . compassion? in his voice.

"Lost," she whispered. "Hollow. I was empty and for a few seconds, he made me feel . . ." She bit her lip and shrugged. "Not empty. And then, when I realized . . ." The same moment of horror she'd felt with Spike consumed her again and her eyes welled up with tears. "Angel, I'm =so= sorry."

He looked at her for a moment -- stared straight into her soul with those piercing, dark knight eyes of his -- then leaned forward, grasped her face between his hands, and kissed her. Softly, sensuously, pulling at her lips with his, caressing her lightly with his tongue. She could not help but sigh into his mouth, crying again, because he tasted of so many things -- love, acceptance, desire -- but above all, forgiveness.

His forehead pressed to hers, he broke the kiss, his hands trailing down to rest on her shoulders.

"How can you forgive this?" she whispered brokenly.

"I love you," he answered, his voice raspy. "I need you. I understand you."

That was it, then. He understood her and it was all that mattered -- it was everything. He knew the way her mind worked, had watched, first hand on many occasions, the self-destructive path she sometimes went down when she was hurt, scared and confused. It was not forgotten. Things were not magically okay between them.

But she was forgiven.

"Do you still trust me?" she asked meekly.

"Trust has nothing to do with it," he insisted quietly, pulling back from her. "The trust that I have in you is unbreakable." They resumed their original positions, backs against the tub.

"How can you say that?" she countered. "What I did--"

"Was very human," he interrupted softly. "Which, in many ways, is exactly what you are."

She raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that distinction what got us into this mess to begin with?"

His mouth quirked at her, and she watched him settle into the tub further. She longed to curl up in his arms, but knew it wasn't the time. They would talk now, real talk, not just the surface explorations or heated arguments they'd had recently. The truly honest things they'd spoken to one another had been done so in the face of anger and frustration. Now, those truths would be spoken and explored out of love and a desire to understand, to grow from and with each other.

It was big and scary and she was so grateful he would be with her for it all.

"I wasn't really okay with it," she said quietly after a moment. "Not as okay as I pretended to be. It--"

"You can say rape, Buffy," he interjected softly, though she could see it pained him to do so. "I hear it in my head every time you talk around it, so you might as well say it out loud."

"But you didn't," she said heatedly. "I wouldn't let--"

"You tried not to," he disagreed quietly. "You tried so hard, and if I didn't already love you more than anything, I'd love you more for it. But, Buffy . . . it got to you. It cut you deep. And hiding that from me -- from yourself -- isn't going to fix what I broke inside of you."

"You're right," she said after a moment. "But not in the way that you think." Off his expression, she elaborated, "There is something broken inside of me. And it did happen because of . . ."

He did not interject again, and she was glad for it. It made it easier to continue.

"It hurt," she confessed softly, "it hurt me like nothing else ever has." His expression hardened and she watched the pain fill his eyes to the brim. Reaching out a hand, she gripped his fingers where they had tightened on the edge of the tub. "But at the same time," she continued, "there was this part of me . . . that liked it. That wanted more. That part of me is still there, Angel. You know it is, because it's inside of you, too. And it's why I'm so confused and I'm sick of being confused. I want to figure it all out. I want to learn everything about me, and about you, and about us. I want us to do everything, to try everything together. I want to know you, and I want you to know me, like no one else ever has. Like no one else ever could."

"I like to think I already do," he answered with a gentle, so fleeting, if-you-blinked-you-missed-it smile.

She returned the smile with a blinding one of her own. "You do," she confirmed. "And I do." A tender feeling welled up in her for him. "But I'm greedy, and I want more."

"More," he murmured, tempting her to elaborate.

"I want to indulge every craving I've had for you since I was sixteen," she declared bravely. "I want to take every bit of pain we've ever felt because of each other, intentional or not, and associate it with something else, something good. That's what . . . it's like that's what we did tonight."

He looked down. "I was angry and I shouldn't have--"

"Yes you should have!" she burst out, slapping the water with her palm. It splattered over them both. "You should have," she said again, quieter. "What happened out there . . . that was everything I begged you for earlier."

"But it wasn't . . . it wasn't right," he insisted. "I hurt you--"

"You didn't," she said flatly. Then she thought for a moment. Her hand drifted to the rapidly healing mark on her neck. "Do you mean this?"

He gave her a 'duh' look.

"Angel, this doesn't hurt." She drifted toward him in the tub, climbed on top of him, her arms going around his shoulders, her legs straddling his hips. "You had to have . . . I mean, with Darla, didn't you--"

"Yes," he said quickly.

"Did that hurt?"

"Yes," he answered again, then sighed, looking uncomfortable. "But not . . . in a bad way."

Smiling a little, she leaned down and laved her tongue roughly across the tendon that ran along the side of his neck. Her face shifted and she let him feel the change against his shoulder.

"Is it . . ." She bit her lip. "Can I?"

He nodded his head once, sharply, the hand not gripping the tub clutching her hip.

Her fangs sank into his flesh and she began to sip from him, grunting at the taste, at the deeply intimate connection she felt between them. A moan left his mouth and his hand trailed up her back to tangle in her hair, pushing her mouth against him, begging for more . . .

Buffy changed the angle of her penetration so that the side of her neck was vulnerable for him. With one hand, she urged his head into place, and a second later, his fangs were once again buried beneath her flesh, completing the circuit between them.

Electric. Euphoric. Ecstatic. Erotic. And that was just one vowel -- how many other words were there to describe how beyond description that moment between them was? Buffy certainly couldn't be bothered to come up with any more. Her entire being was focused on the visceral, sensual thrill coursing through her at possessing and being possessed.

Dracula had offered her a taste what seemed like decades ago. The few drops of his life she'd taken had brought her close to something that had frightened her, so much so that the fear had broken Dracula's thrall. Pulling back from her own darkness had become like second nature to Buffy. Keeping the Slayer separate from the Girl. Self-righteousness kept the lines from getting too muddied, and if there was anything Buffy didn't need, it was muddy lines.

Paw prints covered her entire life now; tiny, damaging paw prints that eclipsed her comfortable view of the world in dirt so thick she had trouble seeing sometimes.

But this . . . this was clarity. Perfection. Ebb and flow, yin and yang, the completion of a puzzle she couldn't remember piecing together.

For an instant, Buffy understood everything. Glimpses of everything she had ever shared with Angel, their true natures, everything they would yet be together -- it consumed her, beckoned her forward into new realms of pleasure and pain, belonging and home, understanding and acceptance. There was no doubt here, only the certainty that this act, this feeling, was right.

Surely this wasn't how it was between all vampires. It didn't seem right that such evil creatures could know such grace . . .

It was passion in its purest form and in an instant, Buffy realized that this very thing was what had driven them to fight earlier -- what had simply driven them toward and away from each other from the moment they met.

This was what she had been longing for, this unholy communion, this beautiful obscenity. For an instant in her drunken delusion, she'd thought, if Angel wouldn't give it to her, that maybe Spike could. It was ridiculous, of course, because Spike could never give her this -- evolved though he was, without a soul, Buffy knew he was only capable of skimming beauty's surface.

Passion wore a thousand ugly faces -- betrayal, sorrow, rage, insecurity, fear. Those five she was all too familiar with, having worn each of their masks over the past two days. But now, as she drew Angel into her and let herself flow into him, she remembered passion's other faces -- joy, ecstasy, desire, awe, and above all, love. All were facets of human need; all were intrinsic to life.

And all were capable of bringing about such bittersweet consequences.

The ultimate act of give and take flowed between them until something that wasn't an orgasm, but definitely packed quite a punch, coursed through them both and they broke apart, panting for unneeded breath. It took Buffy a moment to focus, but when she did, she found Angel staring at her, his confusion and wonder palpable.

"Wow," she whispered, awed.

"Wow," he agreed.

Unnecessary panting filled the room as they stared at one another.

"Was it . . . I mean, is it always like--"

"Never," he said quickly. He opened his mouth to say something else, then shook his head as though he had no words, instead simply whispering "Never," again.

Okay . . .so it was a new experience for them both. That thought made Buffy inexplicably happy. The idea of Angel having felt what they'd just shared with anyone else -- especially Drusilla or Darla -- made her ill. And angry. Homicidal, even.

"Do you think . . ." Her voice was timid, but there was nothing to be done about it. Buffy felt humbled. "I mean, was it different because of . . . what we are?"

"Our souls," he murmured thoughtfully, still looking dazed. "That's . . . and the fact that we love each other." He looked at her for a moment. "Vampires don't love each other," he clarified dully.

"Right," she agreed softly, though she wasn't entirely sure she believed that anymore. Oh, she hadn't loved him the way she did now, as a soulless fiend -- but she =had= loved him. Desperately. Darkly. Obsessively. Selfishly.

"Are you . . .I mean, did that--"

"Fine. I'm fine. Are you--"

"Great. Actually, I'm . . . I . . . I don't really know what to--"

"Say. I know. It's . . . " She licked her lips nervously. "How 'bout we change the subject?"

"That'd be good," he said gratefully.

"Okay. So -- human one day. Yay you." She tried to smile, but felt too much like crying. If she stopped concentrating on the religious experience they'd just shared, all the reasons for the tension between them came crashing down around her again.

"Buffy," he began tiredly, but she cut him off.

"You're going to be human," she said firmly. "And I should be happy for you."

"But you're not," he stated, though not unkindly.

Her face crumpled, and she murmured hoarsely, "No. I'm not."

"I can't . . . I wish I could . . . I don't know how to change--"

"Don't," she said quickly. "You're going to be human. You deserve to be human. You deserve to find some nice, human woman and have a bunch of human kids who'll love you because you'll be the best dad. And even if you don't leave me, you're still going to die someday and I'd hate myself forever if I wasted your life . . ." She laughed, the sound treading on the hysteric side, even to her own ears. "I get that now. Finally. Why you left before."

Leaning forward, he took her hand and gripped it tightly in his own, silently urging her to look him in the eye. He brought her knuckles to his mouth and pressed a reverent kiss to them.

"We don't . . . we have no idea when it's supposed to happen," Angel said gruffly. "Wesley translated the scroll six ways to Sunday and we couldn't find a timeframe. It could be . . . it might be decades. Centuries. I don't even . . . I'm not even sure that I believe it anymore. It's not something I think about."

She tried to smile for him. "It was . . . when I found out what I was, it was . . . I didn't want to be a vampire. I =don't= want to be a vampire. But . . . it made it bearable, knowing that at least we'd be together now. It was a given. There's no one else for me, there never was before, and there sure as hell isn't now." She winced at how that sounded. As though she were only with him because her choices had been taken away. In a way, that was true. If it hadn't been for her turning, she would still be in Sunnydale, maybe with Riley, maybe with someone new.

But she wouldn't feel like this.

"I know you're not happy," Angel said quietly. "And I'm so sorry--"

"Angel," she interrupted, squeezing his hand, "I =am= happy. As happy as I can be with everything that keeps getting dumped on top of us. You make me happy."

"From where I'm sitting, all I seem to do is make you cry," he confessed sadly. "What happened earlier, the way I handled it, walking out--"

"Was what you needed to do," she said flatly. "I should have understood that. Instead, I let my own insecurity, and the weird feelings I've been having lately whack my common sense over the fence."

"We just seem to keep hurting each other," he said softly.

"That's true," she agreed, nodding her head. "You make me hurt. You make me bleed in places that aren't supposed to. You always have."

"You're not cheering me up," he noted wryly.

"You also . . .everything me," she said, her voice taking on a breathy tone she didn't normally use. "I'm . . .pulse or no, Angel, I'm =alive= when I'm with you. Every minute is like the greatest ride of my life, even when I'm terrified of losing you, the way I am now."

"You're not going to lose me," he said firmly. "Whatever happens . . . we're in this, you and me."

"Even after what I did? How can you . . . you say it's not about forgiveness, but--"

"Not buts," he insisted. "This isn't about forgiveness. I forgave you for shoving a sword through my heart and sending me to Hell. I forgave it the second I understood why. I could forgive you anything." He looked down at the water for a moment. "It's not about forgiveness," he repeated again, "it's about me learning to live with it."

His response shoved the knife in her gut a little bit further, but Buffy had to admit it almost felt good. She deserved to hurt after what she'd almost done. Besides, hadn't she been irrationally hurt and angry after that fiasco with Faith? =Both= fiascoes with Faith? What she'd just put Angel through was far more grievous than what he'd inadvertently forced her to live through all those years ago.

"Do you . . ." She licked her suddenly dry lips, her voice emerging about as small as she felt. "Do you want me to sleep in a different room? For a little while, at least?"

"No." The denial came vehemently and firmly, which soothed her fears in the smallest degree. However, his posture was withdrawn, and though they were pressed against one another in the tub, she felt as though he were a million miles away.

"As much as this hurts," he continued quietly, "it would be worse not having you close."

Close at hand, Buffy thought, but never farther apart.

~

will mercy be revealed  
or blind us where we stand

~

"Hey, Red."

Spike glanced up from where he sat, slumped, against the back of the red couch in the Hyperion's lobby. He clutched a bottle of tequila in one hand; the other hung limply at his side.

He'd been trying to work up the will to drag his rotting carcass up the stairs to his room for the past hour and a half. Spike had fled the safety of his relatively comfortable bed when he'd heard the sound of preternatural screwing reverberating through the walls. Visions he'd just as soon ignore had been dancing through his head, and he'd determined that the only cure-all was as much alcohol as he could lay his hands on.

The idiot, Pryce, kept the good strong stuff hidden away in his desk. That pathetic excuse for a lock had given way with little effort on Spike's part, and for the better part of the night, he'd been stewing in his own sad, miserable existence.

He couldn't even get the girl he loved to fuck him when she was drunk out of her mind, and pissed at her beau to boot. He couldn't kill anything that would give a decent reaction to being killed, and the best time he'd had lately was the angry shag he'd shared with the =other= Slayer.

To top it all off, the other girl he loved looked one word away from putting a hex on him, or something equally unpleasant. If only she were angry enough to stake him, he thought, his mind fuzzy, then her face could be the last thing he saw, and his torment would finally end . . .

"What did you do to Buffy?!"

'Course, he would prefer death to come quickly and as painlessly as possible, not accompanied by a snarling voice demanding a confession of all his sins . . .

"Nothin' she didn't like," he slurred, taking another sip. Always called it Dutch courage, but Spike personally thought the Brits he'd grown up around used it a lot more for that purpose. The Dutch just liked being drunk off their arses.

Willow stared at Spike -- or, he thought drunkenly, stared right =through= him -- then stood and moved away. With her back to him, he wasn't so distracted by her eyes that he missed the other details. Her heartbeat had increased, and she smelled like her rage, and . . . her sorrow?

"Get out," she said, her voice quavering.

"Nothin' happened," Spike said softly. "Nothing important, anyway. Nothing that big, hulking bastard she's so in love with won't be able to get over--"

"Get out," she repeated, her voice stronger. Her pain was stronger, too. Was it possible that he'd hurt her? That she might miss him, even a little bit? They'd talked, almost become friends before she started boffing the idiot.

Of course. He'd betrayed her trust -- all of their trusts. By taking advantage of Buffy at her weakest with the intent to hurt Angel, he'd once again stuck a knife squarely in their backs. Now, of course, instead of shrugging it off, Willow was all hurt and destroyed, demanding that he run away and never darken their door again.

Humans were funny that way.

He only wished he could be sorry for it. Sometimes, he even wished the chip would do more than it did -- he wished it would make him care that he didn't care beyond how much he wanted everything that he couldn't have.

It had almost been like family here, for awhile. Almost like he belonged somewhere. Which was ridiculous, because he didn't belong anywhere -- he was a lone wolf. He went where he pleased, and did as he liked. But, still . . .

"I didn't mean to hurt her," he tried feebly.

"Get out," Willow said again, and this time, she turned toward him, her eyes sparking with righteous fury.

"I'm already gone," he mumbled, standing and stumbling up the stairs.

No need to pack much. Just needed to grab his lighter. Maybe that picture, the one where Buffy and Willow were smiling . . .

"God, kill me now," he mumbled.

~

will we burn in heaven  
like we do down here  
will the change come  
while we're waiting  
everyone is waiting

~

Bittersweet Legacy: Absence -- for i am needing

~

inside my skin  
there is this space  
it twists and turns  
it bleeds and aches

~

Her heart was breaking.

It seemed like something so melodramatic to say -- something her mother would have told her to keep Buffy from going out when Joyce wanted a quiet mother/daughter evening in. A store full of parenting books hadn't diminished Joyce Summers' ability to do a damn fine impression of a Jewish mother ((buffy, you're breaking my heart, you can't spend one night with your own mother?)) when the occasion called for it.

She'd heard it a thousand times. And every time, she would roll her eyes, accuse her mother of hamming it up, then grudgingly cancel her plans to Bronze it.

If she'd known then what her mother must have felt, the separation anxiety, the surety that she was losing a connection with the person she'd loved more than anything in the world, and that there was nothing she could do to stop it . . . maybe then, Buffy wouldn't have felt quite so put-upon to spend an evening watching movies with her mother.

It had been two weeks. Two weeks since she'd nearly betrayed Angel and endangered everything there was between them. Two weeks since he'd slowly begun to pull away from her. Two weeks of lying in their bed and feeling -- of all things -- distance when he fell asleep and turned away from her.

Oh, he still smiled at her, still kissed her, had even made love to her a few times . . . but there was something off. He loved her, she knew. It was something she would never be able to doubt. His every action toward her, however, seemed guarded; as though he were trying to decide if this was how he, a concerned and attentive lover, should act. His kisses were different, his touches were different . . . even the way he said her name was different.

The differences in him were killing her.

Months ago, this whole mess had begun one quiet night in a Sunnydale graveyard. Buffy had been sure her Turning, and subsequently Angel's, would be the hardest thing they would ever have to face.

Now, all the trauma of those months was beginning to seem tame compared to this. Unlike now, their actions, while horrifying, were not done with conscious thought. They had been soulless, and, while still culpable, certainly less guilty. This time around, there was no doubt as to Buffy's guilt, neither in her eyes or in Angel's.

And as she pressed her face to Angel's pillow, used her keen predator's senses to inhale the scent of him that still clung to it . . . Buffy knew the pain -- however unintentional -- that she had caused Riley.

Unlike how she had felt toward Riley, Angel loved her. God, how he loved her . . . but he would not allow himself to express it. He would not allow himself to =be= with her and having him so near, yet beyond her reach was slowly turning her insides to ash.

It had been two weeks since he'd last brought her roses in the late evening; and her heart was breaking.

~

inside my heart  
there's an empty room  
it's waiting for lightning  
it's waiting for you

~

"You're cheating, Xander! You're a dirty cheater."

"Will, just because I'm =winning= doesn't mean I'm cheating."

"You are so cheating," Cordelia declared, throwing down her hand in a huff. "You were never this good at poker. Never."

"Guys," Buffy sighed, "could we please just play one hand without--"

"He's up a hundred bucks!" Cordelia cried. "There's no way that just occurred in nature!"

"May I please remind everyone that a 'hundred bucks' translates into one hundred pennies?" Wesley mentioned, attempting to be the voice of reason. "It's not going to make or break anyone at this table, even if Xander is clearly cheating."

"Hey!" Xander yelled.

"When we began playing you weren't even sure if a full house beat a straight," Wesley said tiredly. "I hardly think your ability to bluff has--"

"Xander can bluff?" Angel wondered caustically.

"Can you tell how bad I wanna stake you right now?" Xander sniped, though there was no real malice behind it.

"Yes," Angel answered with a smirk.

"I'm sorry, are we playin' poker here or goin' back to the schoolyard?" Lindsey drawled.

"Whassamatta?" Faith grinned at him. "Baby finally got a good hand?"

"Just the one," Wesley ribbed under his breath.

Lindsey spared him a half-hearted a glare, but directed his answer at Faith: "I ain't tellin' you, darlin'."

"I'm going to destroy you," Cordelia declared to Xander. "Just like I destroyed Giles."

"Like that was hard," Faith scoffed. "G wanted to lose so he wouldn't have to listen to us bitch."

"We do not bitch," Cordelia said haughtily.

"No, we moan," Buffy said with a grin, looking to Angel, because he always appreciated her wit as it pertained to zinging Cordelia. He quirked his mouth at her, a half smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

Maybe he was just having an off night, Buffy reasoned. He was distracted or . . .

"We do moan with the best of them," Xander announced. Then, he began to moan softly. Cordelia joined him, almost against her will . . .

And Angel laughed. His eyes sparkled. He had to set down his cards to clutch at his sides as Cordelia and Xander moaned.

Buffy started to cry.

All the tears she hadn't allowed herself for the past two weeks streaked down her cheeks and she muffled a sob. The mirth everyone had shared a moment before was gone, and they all stared at Buffy.

"Buffy?" Willow asked, concerned.

Shaking her head, having no words to express her sorrow, Buffy leapt up and fled the room.

Willow glanced around the table, hoping to find some clue as to what had just happened. Everyone looked as confused as she did . . . except for Angel, who looked like he wanted to cut out his own heart. Instead, he followed Buffy's lead, storming out in the opposite direction she'd run.

"What the hell was that?" Faith wondered aloud.

"Lover's quarrel," Lindsey said, still staring intently at his cards.

"They weren't quarreling," Wesley pointed out.

"Sure they weren't," Cordelia said doubtfully.

"They've been not right for weeks," Willow added. And she knew why. She was pretty sure she was the only one -- other than Buffy and Angel -- who did.

Well, there was Wesley, too, but she =had= to tell him! He'd been concerned about Angel, and, well, Willow hated keeping secrets from someone she was intimate with. It made her guilty and jumpy and that was why she wasn't allowed to have Mountain Dew.

"Should we go after Buffy?" Xander asked.

"No," Willow said, before grabbing Xander's hand and dragging him out of the room.

"All right," Lindsey announced, "scrap this hand, deal 'em out -- Texas Hold 'Em." He winked at Faith, then gestured with his prosthetic hand. "You'll have to do the honors for me."

"That's what I'm here for," she muttered, collecting the cards.

In fact, Faith was beginning to wonder if that was =all= she was there for.

Things had been amazing these past few weeks with Lindsey. They'd been playing piano together almost nightly -- he liked to teach her to play all her favorite songs, and with the exception of the first, magical time they'd sat down together, Faith was a total novice on those pearly white keys.

Lindsey was a good teacher, though; patient and deliberate when he gave instruction in that smooth, sexy drawl. On more than one occasion, Faith had been seriously tempted to say 'screw it' to the lessons and jump him in that big, bad ballroom in desperate need of a feather duster.

And he made her laugh. He made little ironic comments about life, about the loonies in this nut house and she'd nearly bust a gut laughing like she hadn't in -- well, never. Faith was wry and bad ass and her sense of humor was rooted in cynicism. Lindsey was a cynic himself, but deep down inside she was sure the heart of an eternal optimist was dying to get out.

Dying being the operative word, because if Faith was right -- and she was pretty damn sure that she was -- Lindsey was starving something inside of him to death. He gave it rations at the piano, but it wasn't enough and instead of healing the way Faith had hoped he would, Lindsey seemed to be getting more depressed, more lost.

One night after they'd played for a couple of hours, they were sitting on the checkered floor of the ballroom, their backs against the piano bench, trading secrets. Faith had confessed how mired down she'd gotten, how she'd lost her way in the darkness because it was easy and she didn't have to feel all the pain that way. In turn, he'd confessed that evil had never been easy for him -- it had just seemed necessary for awhile.

His family had grown up poor, his father incapable of supporting any of the children he and his wife continued to have. Lindsey told her about the older sister who had died on the streets when she ran away at sixteen, and about the younger sister who'd come out to L.A. a few years ago and 'disappeared.' Wolfram and Hart were probably behind it, he'd confessed, and there had been shame in his eyes.

He told her how they'd lost their house when he was a kid, expressed his rage over a father who grinned and beared it as bastard after bastard walked right over him. He'd sworn to never be that guy who took it in the ass with a smile, and Faith had understood where he was coming from. She'd always promised herself she wouldn't be anyone's chump and then she'd totally lost control of her life -- her soul -- while hanging on to her precious ego.

"Babe," Lindsey said loudly, and Faith snapped out of her deep thoughts to stare at him. "Your bet," he said with a little smile.

Faith tossed a couple of chips onto the pile without bothering to look at her hand. All he'd really needed from her was a shuffle; Lindsey was dealing the rest of the hand one-handed.

Was that all he wanted her for? A fucking right hand?

"Fold," Faith said suddenly, tossing her hand down. "I, uh -- I need some air." She pushed away from the table and barely heard Cordelia wonder aloud "What is this, temper tantrum night?" before she reached the door to the garden.

Everybody seemed to end up in this stupid garden sooner or later, Faith reflected as she sat down heavily on the brick. Angel swore it was calming; that it helped him find his center. Faith sat there for a moment, breathing in the fresh air, taking in the beauty of the garden all their hands had helped shape in some way . . .

And promptly decided it was in no way, shape or form for her.

Getting to her feet once more, Faith strode back into the hotel and headed straight for the ballroom.

~

and i am wanting  
i am needing you here  
inside the absence of fear

~

Lindsey found her there several minutes later trying to play some Nirvana song on the piano.

"Somehow, 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' loses something when it's that quiet," he noted wryly.

"Cobain wasn't born for quiet," Faith noted, not looking up at him. "I can relate."

"I like that you're not quiet," Lindsey confided quietly. "I like that you keep me wide awake."

"Don't," Faith ordered stiffly, her hands stilling on the keys.

Lindsey looked confused. "Don't . . . what?"

"Don't -- =do= that," Faith mumbled. "Don't talk about me like I'm making your life better, because I know I'm not." She got up from the piano and began to pace, long, angry strides that encompassed most of the spacious room.

"But you are," Lindsey insisted, trying to keep up with her, to force her to meet his gaze. "Faith, there are a lot of things in my life I'm not sure of, but you aren't one of them."

"Maybe I should be then," she said at last. "Because you've still got a death wish and I don't want to live with someone who doesn't want to live with me."

"I do want to live with you," Lindsey insisted.

"Unless you're going through a mood where you don't want to live at all," Faith countered.

"Who the Hell made you the expert on what I want?" Lindsey snapped. "You've got no idea what's going on my head."

"Don't I?" Faith wondered bitterly. "Baby, I =was= you. Which is exactly why I should have known better than to let myself fall in love with someone that fucked up."

Lindsey looked startled. "You -- you're in love with me?"

"Of course I'm in love with you, you moron!" Faith screamed. "You don't dream about someone you've never met, finally come together and fucking =meld minds= or some shit without falling in love with them!"

"I know," Lindsey agreed quietly. "I just -- I didn't know you knew."

"Well I know," Faith said crossly. "And I'm not going to put up with your mopey bullshit anymore. Jesus, Lin, you haven't even tried to =kiss= me since that first time. Are you that afraid of wanting to live again?"

"Yes," he whispered hoarsely.

Faith felt her lower lip tremble and she almost screamed in frustration. She wasn't supposed to feel like this; wasn't supposed to have someone else matter this much. What he did with his life was out of her control, which meant her heart was out of her control because her heart was his, whether he wanted it or not.

The fact that he seemed to want it -- and still couldn't pull himself out -- made everything hurt that much worse.

"Then fucking snap out of it," Faith ordered angrily. "I can't be with someone who doesn't want to live firmly in this world. Life -- especially =my= life -- is too goddamn short for me to stand by while you dick around with whether you can handle your moral conflicts."

Holding his gaze for a moment, she turned and walked out.

Or, at least, she tried to.

His reflexes were pretty good for a guy who'd lost an extremity. His one good hand closed around her upper arm and spun her around to face him. Then he was kissing her and holding her tight, God, so tight and she forgot about being angry because she felt it, that melding again and he was starting to undress her.

Lindsey's fingers were dancing over her skin, the same clean, graceful movements he used on the keys. He encouraged her to follow his lead and she couldn't remember when she'd gotten his shirt off or when they'd sunk down to the floor. And damn, she had to talk to Angel about getting this place cleaned up if Lindsey was going to keep teaching her how to play like this.

~

muscle and sinew  
velvet and stone  
this vessel is haunted  
it creaks and moans

~

"Sorry, this is the brooding over brunettes zone," Xander quipped as he took a seat next to Angel at the bottom of the Hyperion's staircase.

"Yeah, so if that sourpuss is for anyone blonde, you're gonna have to take it to the privacy of your own room," Willow added, sitting down on Angel's other side.

"Hey, I think Buffy's up there already," Xander added.

"Which works out good, considering communication is the only real way to put an end to the brooding," Willow confided.

"Guys, despite what your well-intentioned hearts are telling you, this isn't helpful," Angel told them tiredly.

"Neither is your approach, friend of the friendless," Xander pointed out.

"Spike's been scarce lately," Angel mentioned, clearly trying to change the subject. "At first I thought it was because he'd finally grown a brain. It's been awhile though, and I'm starting to wonder if he's gone for good."

"Yeah. That." Willow blushed a little. "I, um . . . I sort of told him to leave and never come back."

Angel raised an eyebrow at her. "Buffy tried that and it didn't work."

"The Buffster obviously doesn't have the deep down cold menace my Will does," Xander crowed triumphantly.

"I'm really sorry for what he did to you," Willow confided.

"It's not your fault, Willow," Angel assured her quietly. He wondered if Buffy had explained the full story to Willow. Somehow, he doubted it. His lover had been tearing herself up with guilt and he was almost positive she'd allowed Willow to think the worst of her.

He felt bad for Willow. She'd developed an attachment to Spike -- something akin to friendship -- and it was always difficult to realize your trust had been misplaced.

Then, something else occurred to Angel. Perhaps Willow's information hadn't come from Buffy after all.

"He . . . he told you what happened, then?" Angel asked her hesitantly.

"Oh, Angel, Buffy would never do anything to hurt you and if she did it was only because she wasn't thinking, you know how she is, and she's really sorry--"

Angel held up a hand to put an end to Willow's ceaseless babble.

"I don't want to hear it, Willow," he nearly begged. "I can't hear it."

"But you're pushing Buffy away," Willow nearly cried.

"You don't mean to," Xander noted, "but you are. And it's killing her."

"Don't you think it's killing me, too?" Angel snapped. "I don't know how to do anything else. I don't know how to let her inside again. I want to. You can't know how much . . ." He swallowed down a flood of tears. "I miss her. We got so close, we were so fucking close to something that wasn't hard. That goddamn prophecy has brought me nothing but misery."

"You could have told her about it yourself, you know," Willow admonished gently.

"Yeah," Xander agreed, "no offense to Queen C, but hearing things second hand from Cordelia can't have been easy on Buff."

"I know that," Angel said wearily. "But . . . the truth is, I hadn't given the prophecy much thought. Not in a long time. Certainly not since Darla came back from the dead." He shook his head. "Focusing on the idea that I might be human someday nearly cost me everything awhile ago. So I . . . forgot about it. I made myself forget. And since Buffy got her soul back, the only thought in my head has been how to make it easier for her. I wanted to spend the rest of my days by her side. The moment I realized she was going to have forever, my subconscious said goodbye to any dream of becoming human."

"But, Angel," Willow began timidly, "you may not have a choice in the matter."

"Prophecies are funny like that," Xander noted.

"And once you are human," Willow added, "you may feel differently."

"I'm always going to want to be with her," Angel vowed softly. "It doesn't matter how different we are. There's nothing keeping us apart now; I sure as Hell wouldn't let humanity do it."

Willow finally let a bright, hesitant smile spread across her face. "Do you think that maybe you should tell her that?"

"I'm afraid," Angel confessed at last. "I'm so afraid of hurting her again; of getting hurt again."

"Afraid enough to risk losing her for good?" Xander wondered. "Because I'm telling you, man, right now, you're hurting her worse than you could by being with her."

"Maybe she's afraid of the same thing," Willow said gently. "You're not the only one who went evil anymore, Angel. You're not the only one with issues and guilt and an inferiority complex. You're not just the guy that broke her heart; you're the one who saved her. You're it for her." She waved her hand at him. "Go be it for her."

Angel stared at Buffy's best friend for a moment before smiling gently, leaning over and placing a soft kiss to her cheek.

"Neither one of us deserves you," he confided to her softly.

"What about me?" Xander asked, affronted.

"No one deserves you, Harris," Angel threw over his shoulder as he bounded up the stairs.

"I think I'm insulted," Xander complained.

~

"You should go talk to him," Wesley said for the twentieth time.

"No, I think it should be you," Cordelia countered for the twenty-first time, and Giles was about to quietly murder them both.

"You've known him longer," Wesley pointed out, "and he always seems more willing to open up to you."

"Yes, but I'm a woman," Cordelia said as though that made everything clear.

"We're all well aware of your gender, Cordy," Wesley noted dryly.

Cordelia rolled her eyes at him. "I'm a woman. The enemy. The one who hurt him, just like Buffy. You're a guy. He'll open up better to a guy who he feels is on his side."

"Angel doesn't think that way," Wesley insisted, "and I think he'd prefer to have this conversation with you."

"You're both completely useless," Giles muttered quietly to himself as he read through the scrolls of Aberjian. He'd been fascinated when Wesley had first told him of the prophecy and disconcerted when he'd been sworn to secrecy. It seemed Angel didn't like discussing it and Giles had been willing to respect the vampire's privacy.

With that end in mind, he had buried himself in Wesley's office with every spare moment he had, poring over translation after translation, using some of Wesley's notes as a reference.

Things had been going amazingly well until the Bickersons barged in and began their grating argument.

"Trust me when I say Angel doesn't want to talk to me about the whole Buffy issue when it's just Buffy in the equation," Cordelia said. "He certainly doesn't want to talk to me about the whole Buffy and Spike thing."

That got Giles' attention.

"What Buffy and Spike thing?" he asked. Come to think of it, he hadn't had the urge to stake Spike recently -- obviously, the only explanation was that he hadn't =seen= Spike recently.

"Oh," Cordelia said, exchanging a frantic glance with Wesley, "well, um -- I mean, you know . . . Wes?"

"Yes," Wesley said immediately, "Well, you know--"

"Buffy almost boinked Spike," Cordelia finally spat out. "It happened after she accidentally--" She elbowed Wesley in the ribcage when he coughed loudly, "--heard about the prophecy deal where Angel gets to be human one day in the very vague future."

To say that Giles was confused was an understatement. He was torn between shock at Buffy's actions, and shock at his own dimness.

He felt like a stupid old man for having not fully comprehended the gravity of the situation as it pertained to Buffy. There had been incredible tension between them the past two weeks, and Giles had been concerned, though not overly worried. He'd assumed there had been some sort of lovers' quarrel they needed to work through. Obviously he'd seriously underestimated the cause of their rift.

Another shocking emotion occurred to Giles -- anger. Anger at Buffy for doing something so foolish, for recklessly endangering her relationship with Angel, for hurting the vampire in such a callous way. That he found himself feeling badly for Angel was truly astonishing for Giles. Anger, too, at Angel -- his inability to forgive Buffy for her astonishingly stupid behavior had caused the girl he loved more than life extraordinary pain. Giles likened his conflicting emotions to that of a parent, trying to decide which of their children had been in the wrong . . .

Then, of course, there was a healthy dose of relief for finally learning the source of everyone's tension these past weeks. There was also a trace of amusement at the 'oh, shit, we blew the secret what's going to happen now?' looks on Wesley and Cordelia's faces.

They were saved by a knock at the door.

"Come in!" Wesley and Cordelia called out together.

Angel poked his head in the door.

"Angel!" Cordelia greeted enthusiastically. "How are you?"

"I need to speak with Giles," Angel said somberly. "Alone."

Wesley and Cordelia broke land speed records exiting the room. Giles would have smiled had the expression on Angel's face not been so grave and nervous.

"Is there something I can help you with?" Giles asked the vampire kindly.

After a moment of loaded silence, Angel answered softly.

"I need to ask you something."

~

my bones call to you  
in their separate skin  
make myself translucent  
to let you in

~

Buffy wasn't really asleep.

After her dramatic departure from the poker game earlier, she'd headed straight for her bedroom and one of the shirts in the hamper. Angel's scent clung to the black silk and she'd shimmied out of her own clothes, wrapped the much-too-large-for-her-frame shirt around her body and promptly fell into a heap on the bed.

Ivory colored silk caressed the rest of her body and she pressed her face against Angel's pillow. It didn't seem fair that his presence should be everywhere in this room when he wasn't present, and locked deep down inside his frame when he was. Angel wouldn't let his heart open to her again and no matter how much she hoped, how much she wanted things to be the way they were before, Buffy was finally forced to accept that they never would be.

It didn't mean they couldn't be together, she convinced herself firmly. They just wouldn't be the same together. She would have to get used to some distance between them and maybe, someday, he'd learn to let her in again. He still believed in her, after all. He wasn't suspicious or mistrustful about her motives or her whereabouts. His hands touched her in all the right ways and he never threw what had happened between her and Spike in her face. He still believed in her.

He just didn't believe in =them= anymore.

Tears escaped from beneath Buffy's closed eyelids and she mentally berated herself for them. What right did she have to cry? He was the one who was hurting. He was the one who'd been gutted.

And he was the one who was never going to let her feel at home in his arms again.

Buffy was not asleep when Angel crept inside their bedroom, but she pretended to be, hoping her tears had dried on her cheeks long enough ago that he wouldn't see them and feel guilty. The last thing she wanted was to make him feel guilty.

Floorboards creaked beside the bed and something soft brushed against her cheek. Opening her eyes, Buffy found Angel's gaze level with hers, his body crouched down as he kneeled on the floor at the side of the bed. Her nostrils scented something sweet and she looked away from him long enough to spy one of the antique lace roses in his hand, an inch from her face. He'd de-thorned it, and the gesture brought more tears to her eyes -- this time, tears of relief; of hope.

Her tears spilled softly over her cheeks and Angel's thumbs moved up to catch them, brushing the wetness away. She saw that his eyes were wet, too, and her relief ((oh God he still wants me please God let him still want me)) bubbled over. Closing her hand around his over the rose's stem, she brought it to her nose to inhale its sweet, comforting scent.

"I'm sorry," he whispered softly. His face was close to hers because she was lying on his side of the bed, half an inch from the edge. "I'm sorry I've been so distant lately and I'm sorry it took me so long to come to terms with it."

"It's okay," Buffy said, trying to stop a new flow of tears ((he loves me he forgives me for real he's not going away again)) lurking on the horizon. "Believe me, it's okay."

"It's not, but thank you for saying so," he murmured softly. He swallowed deeply, and he brought his gaze back to hers. "I asked Giles for something earlier," he said in a hushed voice, the perfect, dark stillness in their room settling over them both like a warm blanket.

"What?" Her nose was buried in the rose, her mind fuzzy and stunned less-than-sharp. Hazy, blissful lassitude was the only thing she could firmly connect on other than the perfect, healing scent of the delicate, sturdy rose Angel had brought her.

His hand on hers penetrated the fog, though, as he guided it lower on the stem. Resting against the cool cream of their sheets, situated around the stem of her freshly picked rose, was an antique silver Claddagh ring, achingly familiar to Buffy.

"His permission to ask you to marry me," Angel answered quietly.

Her startled, disbelieving gaze flew to his, and if possible, more tears fell down her cheeks.

"You what?" she whispered, too terrified of the crushing disappointment if she'd heard wrong to believe him just yet. ((he can't have just -- it must mean something else. But what else could it mean? Maybe he asked for Giles' permission to bury me. Except that makes no sense and he must have said marry and oh, god, I was just ecstatic he wasn't leaving me.))

"Needless to say, he gave his blessing," Angel added solemnly, indicating the ring where it rested on the bed. "The first time I gave you this, it brought me back from a demon dimension. This time, I'm hoping it will break us both out of a different kind of Hell."

Picking the rose up, he let the ring slide down the stem into his palm. He fingered it between his thumb and index finger lightly.

"We've hurt each other so deeply," he mused softly, "and through it all, you've made me happier -- lighter -- than I have any right to be."

"Angel," she whimpered, sitting up on the bed. He was wrong. It was him who'd made her happier and lighter. Even when her entire being had ached from the loss of him -- both times -- she'd still felt better for having held him in her life, in her heart, at all. He'd =saved= her so many times now she'd lost count. He brought such pure, perfect pain to her life and she could only bear it because it was born from the depths of such pure, perfect love.

"I told you a long time ago what this ring stood for, to my people," Angel continued as though she hadn't interrupted him, and he had that look in his eyes again, just like he had that night, only this time, he wasn't going to go away . . .

"The hands are for friendship, the crown is for loyalty, and the heart means that I love you more than anything in this world," Buffy whispered, looking down at his left hand, at the ring he must have taken from his right while he'd been away from her today. He'd placed the Claddagh he'd never stopped wearing on the finger you'd wear a wedding band.

"And it means that you belong to me," he added, gently stroking the little bones in her left hand with his thumb, touching the spot that would never be visible to his gaze again, because Buffy was determined to never remove that ring from her finger ever again. "That we belong to each other," he added, bowing his head in wonder for a moment before looking up at her again. "You make me a better man, Buffy. You make me forget that I'm not really a man at all."

"You are," Buffy said forcefully, squeezing his hand tightly. "Angel, you're the greatest man I know."

Angel smiled at her, softly, gratefully. "You have a beautiful heart, Buffy, and I want to keep it safe and warm, for the rest of your life, just like I have from the moment I saw you."

"Even if . . ." The words 'you become human' were left unspoken.

"For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, until we are parted by death," he vowed quietly.

"Until we are parted by death," she agreed, her voice equally hushed.

"Buffy, marry me," he said, and while there was definite pleading in his tone, she didn't detect a question.

Her lips curved into a playful smile. "Like it's even a question."

Angel laughed softly, and she returned his laugh with a smile of her own. Then, she added, "Besides, I just took a vow."

He shrugged. "What can I say? I'm obtuse."

Buffy's heart felt like it would burst for how much she loved him in that moment. How grateful she was to have him by her side; how incredibly lucky she was that he still wanted to be with her. How amazing it was that they could both still want each other after everything that had come before.

"Yes, Angel, I will marry you," she said in a clear, calm voice. "I will keep you safe and be your best friend and love you and make love to you and always forgive you and listen to you and be with you for as long as we have." There were still tears leaking down her cheeks but, oh, they were such good tears.

With a grin that cracked her heart in two, he came up on his knees, gripped the back of her neck with his palm, and pulled her mouth to his for a kiss. His right hand fumbled for the ring, pulled her hand to him, and slipped it on her finger, heart pointing in, his lips never leaving hers.

When he tried to pull away, Buffy used her considerable strength to tumble them both to the bed. He landed on top of her, and she brought her legs up around him to hold him close, the same way her arms held him.

They both laughed softly when their legs tangled, then sighed when Angel removed her shirt.

"That looked suspiciously like one of mine," he murmured against the side of her neck.

"I needed to be close to you," she whispered, tossing his black pullover in the direction he'd sent her borrowed silk shirt.

Pressing a kiss to her cheek, he let his hand run slowly up and down her side. "I'm right here," he promised her quietly, taking her hand in his, twining their fingers together. "Always."

Buffy smiled softly and turned her head until their lips met again. His hands moved over her the way they used to, and a joyous sob caught in her throat as she pulled him closer.

"I'm getting that," she whispered against his mouth.

~

there is this hunger  
this restlessness inside of me  
it knows that you're no stranger  
you're my gravity

~

Silk slid against their bodies and Buffy wondered if the urge to cry with all the joy in her heart would ever pass.

Angel's mouth was close to her cheeks, his tongue lapping up every tear she shed, drinking them down like consecration, begging forgiveness for every ounce of her pain.

She loved that about him.

There were so many things that she loved about him, though. The curve of his back when he hovered over her, making them both wait. The press of his fingers between her legs as he gently coaxed her to moan for him just so. His tongue, so talented, teasing the scar on the side of her neck, taunting her with remembered passion and inciting the bloodlust that raged beneath her skin.

A thousand things that she loved about him and a thousand things she would miss desperately when he was gone.

Despite what he said, she wasn't stupid. The day would come when he would become human and she would let him go with wide-open arms because she wanted everything for him. After a lifetime of pain and darkness, she wanted him to be able to live in the light if he was able.

Buffy wanted to see what Angel's children would look like, and if whatever woman he decided to have them with allowed it, Buffy hoped to be able to watch them grow up. She wanted Angel to get old, to see his reflection, marred with wrinkles, but no less beautiful to her. Finally, she understood as she held him so close, why he was able to leave her all those years ago.

He intended to be with her for always; he would not have offered her his ring, would not have said aloud those words she'd longed for since she was sixteen if he hadn't intended forever with them. But Buffy wouldn't allow him to stay because of a beautiful promise when there was life waiting for him without her.

But maybe, she thought desperately as she pressed a kiss to his collarbone, crying out softly at his thumb brushed just so against her, maybe it won't happen for awhile yet.

They would have time together, a little chunk of eternity that she'd be able to hold close when she was all alone in the dark again.

Soft, gentle lips pressed against her tightly closed eyelids and his hand brushed over her hip.

"Look at me, Buffy," he whispered, settling into the welcoming cradle of her thighs.

Opening her eyes, she gasped as he entered her in one smooth stroke.

"I will never leave you," he vowed softly. "I will never let you leave me. If you try, I'll spend the rest of my life -- eternal or mortal -- finding you again."

More tears ((am I ever going to stop crying?)) came and she wrapped her legs around him, one of her palms cradling his cheek while her left hand reached out to his, their fingers twining.

"Promise?" she whispered around a tiny sob.

Leaning down, he pressed a kiss to the tip of her nose and she realized that he was crying, too.

"You found me again, didn't you?" he murmured against her mouth.

Buffy sobbed in earnest this time, and he swallowed down her cries. She had found him again, hadn't she? It had taken so much pain, so many twists and turns she had never imagined possible, but she'd found him at last and then she couldn't think anymore because they were kissing, kissing, kissing, their bodies melting until they rocked together, barely moving.

Tilting her head to the side, Buffy offered him her throat and he broke away from her mouth, meeting her gaze solemnly for a moment before bending his head to her neck. His fangs sank into her flesh and the pleasure rushing through her body intensified. The hand that had been cradling her head so gently began to urge her forward and Buffy fastened her mouth to his neck in return.

And this was not wrong; this was not a cheap thrill like handcuffs and scented oil. It was holy and beautiful and sacred, total trust and love and commitment flowing between them and whatever good intentions Buffy had of letting him go one day were lost as they shared bodies and blood and love, sealing the vow between them.

((I now pronounce you husband and wife, Amen))

~

my hands will adore you   
through all darkness aim  
they will lay you out in moonlight  
and reinvent your name  
for i am wanting  
i am needing you  
here inside the absence   
of fear

~

Bittersweet Legacy: Requiem -- a sorta fairytale

~

He Heals the Brokenhearted.  
Psalms 147: 3

~

"I don't want to have a church service. They're for the living, not for the dead, and Gunn would have hated it. Hell, he'd rather we just go to Vegas and get drunk."

The entire group had agreed upon Cordelia's pronouncement. There had been so much death and pain over the past year that the idea of saying goodbye to the people they had lost in an unconventional manner suited everyone just fine. Plus, "Funerals are morbid and I doubt I'd be able to explain to Uncle George exactly what the circumstances surrounding Dad's death were. Not to mention he'd want a daytime service and it'd look major strange when I burst into flames," Buffy noted sadly.

Willow said they should have it at night (Angel and Buffy supported this thought enthusiastically), somewhere outdoors with lots of lights. Wesley had suggested candles and some sort of prayer they could say in a circle, which had caused Willow to beam at him. Buffy had hesitantly requested white Christmas lights because Christmas had been Dawn's favorite time and her mom hated decorating the tree with those multi-colored bulbs. Request approved and the garden outside the hotel was picked as the perfect location, especially given that Xander's living monument to Anya was thriving, even in the dead of winter.

Of course, "dead of winter" was relative, given that December in Los Angeles barely dropped below 40 at night. Willow had gone into whirlwind mode as she searched through all the texts she could find (Giles', Angel's, and Wesley's) until she located the perfect ceremony. As it turned out, there was no perfect ceremony in Willow's mind and, with Cordelia and Buffy's help, she had managed to bastardize several different rituals into what was, as Cordelia termed it, a "see you soon -- but not too soon" goodbye.

Buffy and Angel had, for the time being, decided to keep their spiritual marriage and literal engagement a secret. They felt it was something sacred they wanted to keep private as long as possible, and hoped to share the news with the rest of their family when the idea of joyfully embracing the future felt less indelicate.

Time moved slower as the big day approached. They all found themselves wishing it would hurry up and get there, so it could hurry up and be over, so they could stop obsessing over it.

"This is why I hate funerals," Buffy noted sadly at dinner one night.

"Which is why this isn't a funeral," Willow steadfastly maintained.

"Call it what you want, Will," Buffy said tiredly. "We wait, we plan, we mourn, and in the morning, everybody's still dead."

"You've been Down in the Dumps girl lately," Cordelia pointed out, casting a sidelong glance Buffy's way.

"Excuse me for having a problem planning the memorial service of people that I killed," Buffy huffed.

"You're right," Cordelia said archly. "Maybe you shouldn't come."

That brought Buffy up short. "What?"

"You certainly wracked up quite the body count," Cordelia continued. "Clearly, the most honorable thing you could do is slink away off into the creepy shadows you like so much and let the rest of us say goodbye to your family."

Buffy pursed her lips, then blew out a puff of air, nearly smiling. "Nicely played, Cordelia."

"Thank you," Cordelia said, popping a grape into her mouth.

"This really isn't just about us, you know," Willow said after a moment. "I think . . . I think that maybe =they= need this. You know -- to move on."

Everyone nodded in agreement, and the subject was dropped. They'd all been doing that a lot lately. Grief was oppressive, and it threatened to suffocate even those in their ranks that did not technically require oxygen to live. When the opportunity to stop thinking about all that they'd lost presented itself, they reached out and held on tight.

The time for distraction was drawing to a close, however. The big day loomed ominously in the distance as everyone sought to reconcile their own jumbled emotions in preparation for the tribute they wanted to pay those dearly loved and forever lost.

~

"So after this prayer deal . . . we party?"

"Pretty much," Willow answered, her voice a bit tight. It bothered her that she still felt uncomfortable around Faith, but no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't seem to make a connection with the Slayer. Old grievances, both real and imagined, clung like vine.

"There will be considerable amounts of alcohol consumed, I imagine," Wesley noted wryly.

"Alcohol sounds decidedly necessary," Willow confirmed. Wesley placed a comforting arm on her back. "No!" Willow yelled at Giles, leaping up from her seat, leaving Wesley and Lindsey to stare after her. "Not like that -- you're doing it all wrong."

"I most certainly am not doing it wrong," Giles insisted.

"Willow -- I know a guy," Lindsey offered, "that can get the best of the best for next to nothing."

"Good," Willow called back, her eyes shadowed with sadness and lack of sleep. "Because that's about all we can afford -- if you forget about the 'next to' part."

Lindsey smiled tiredly. "I'll convince him he owes me a favor."

"If that doesn't work, just tell him your girlfriend can beat him up," Faith said with a smirk.

"I doubt that'll be necessary, Darlin', but you can bet I'll keep you in mind." He looked at her fondly as he said it, then gripped her fingers tightly for a moment.

"I'll come with you," Wesley said as Lindsey started to depart. Lindsey raised an eyebrow at this, but didn't comment as he and the former Watcher left Giles, Faith, and Willow in the courtyard outside the Hyperion.

Willow left Giles in peace for a moment and returned to her seat across from Faith. "We should string some of the white lights here," Willow said, indicating Anya's rosebush, "and get them to sort of arch up so it's like she's surrounded in light."

Giles began doing as Willow instructed and Faith went to work on stringing lights through an arched ceiling Xander had built for the courtyard. After a critiquing session ended with Giles glaring murderously at Willow, she left him alone and moved to sit opposite Faith.

"Need some help?" Willow offered in a falsely cheerful voice.

"Sure, Red," Faith agreed, trying to smile.

In truth, both women were unsure why they couldn't seem to get past their mutual animosity. Willow was no longer threatened in the least by Faith and Faith had stopped thinking of Willow as a stuck-up goody-two-shoes ages ago. Since Faith had more than proved herself to be a team player who'd lost nearly all of her psychotic tendencies, Willow couldn't say she feared Faith, either. Why, then, was her back so stiff as they strung Christmas lights through dark cherry wood?

"I don't hate you," Willow finally blurted out after a few minutes of awkward silence. "I don't, really."

"Me neither, Red," Faith said after a minute, looking distinctly uncomfortable in the lavender pastel dress she'd borrowed from Cordelia.

"Why are you wearing that?" Willow asked curiously. "I mean, I know Cordelia isn't big on leather, but she must have something that isn't so . . . so . . ."

"Not me?" Faith asked with a grin. "Yeah, she does. But . . ." She bit her lip.

"What?" Willow asked gently.

"It just doesn't seem right," Faith said at last. "Dressing like me at a . . . funeral."

"It's not a funeral!" Willow almost whined. "Why does everybody keep calling it--"

"Chill," Faith said in an exasperated yet soothing tone. "Whatever you wanna call it, it's still something sacred, and me and sacred don't exactly go hand in hand."

"It's just . . . you look so unhappy like that," Willow said lamely. "Like all that lavender is going to start strangling you."

"It's just going to take some getting used to," Faith insisted. "And it's only for a day, right? It's the least I can do for the dearly departed."

"If anyone who knew you before saw you looking like that, it would freak them out," Willow said sharply. "This ceremony tonight is about making peace with the people we've lost with all the honesty and affection in our hearts. You've always dressed like a skank, right?"

"Yeah," Faith said. "And hey!"

"Sorry," Willow said, "I didn't mean you =were= a skank -- though I guess you kinda were . . ."

"This conversation really isn't doing much for my self-esteem, chickie," Faith pointed out dryly.

"Sorry," Willow said again, waving her hands in nervous apology. "It's just . . . wear what makes you feel like you. As long as you know who you are . . . it doesn't matter what you look like."

"I know," Faith said unconvincingly.

"Right," Willow said with a smirk, "which would explain all the dainty lace you're wearing."

"You keep noticing all the dainty lace I'm wearing," Faith said, grinning, "I'm gonna start wondering if you're a little bit hot for me."

"I am not!" Willow said, then blushed. "Besides, I'm . . . you know . . . Wesley!"

"That won't last," Faith said casually.

"Why not?" Willow asked worriedly.

"Because pretty soon, he's gonna get sick of your unsatisfied lusty obsession with me," Faith said with a put upon sigh.

Willow opened and closed her mouth in mortified astonishment until she saw the grin on Faith's face.

"Oh, you bitch!" she cried with a laugh as she smacked Faith squarely on the arm.

"Please, please tell me you're about to start rolling around on the floor, pulling hair," Xander said as he entered the room. "And if you are, can you give me a second to race across the street and buy a video camera from that demon pawn shop?"

"Sorry, Xan, no cat fight today," Willow said. "But we are almost done with this archy thing."

"Thing of beauty," Faith commented.

"That it is," Xander agreed. "Nice work, lovely ladies. Now, to hang it. Where'd McDonald go?"

"Booze run," Giles said from his crouched position near Anya's rosebush. "With Pryce."

"Giles just said booze," Willow said in a falsetto whisper.

"Booze run," Xander said, nodding. "Nice to see they've got priorities."

"Linds said they'd be back soon," Faith offered.

"Best to wait 'til they are to hang this sucker," Xander pronounced. "McDonald's got some construction experience, and between the two of us, and a little preternatural super strength, we should get this baby up in no time."

"Does that mean we're done here?" Willow asked, standing. "Because if we're done here, I'd like to practice a spell for tonight."

"Go to it, Sabrina," Xander said. "Oh, but first -- has anybody seen Queen C.?"

"Not since breakfast," Faith said.

"Me too," Willow said as she left the room.

"I believe she said she was going out for a walk," Giles said helpfully. "But that was hours ago."

Xander sighed. "I guess this means a quest is in my future."

"She's a big girl," Faith pointed out. "I bet she can navigate her way around L.A. for a few hours without you."

"She seemed kinda off today at breakfast," Xander insisted. "I . . . I just want to make sure she's okay."

Faith smirked at him knowingly.

"I do," Xander insisted. "Because she's my friend. My old, old friend who I care about as a friend because that's what friends do. I'd do the same for my friend Buffy."

"I might believe you, Harris," Faith said as she stood up, "if you could stop using the word friend with quite so much frequency."

"Shut up," Xander said after a moment of silent blustering.

~

"You should really have this monstrosity looked at," Wesley noted.

"Wasn't my truck," Lindsey said as he drove one-handed. "You should never take another man's truck into the shop without his permission."

"Gunn isn't exactly in much of a position to be giving permission," Wesley said tightly.

"Yeah, but he sold his soul for this truck, so I'd say it was a pretty big deal to him."

Wesley paused for a moment. "What was that?"

Lindsey glanced over at him, grinned, then looked back to the road. "I bet he never told any of you that, did he?"

"He sold his soul for a truck?" Wesley said, hoping he'd heard wrong.

"Years ago," Lindsey said. "When he started working for Angel, Wolfram and Hart naturally did a background check on him."

"Naturally," Wesley said dryly.

"Seems his soul was in the possession of a demon that runs a casino downtown," Lindsey explained.

"If that's true," Wesley said slowly, "that would mean Charles' soul isn't at rest--"

"I told Red about it," Lindsey said, looking straight ahead. "She took care of it."

"Ah," Wesley said. "She, uh . . . she didn't mention it."

"Probably just didn't want to upset you," Lindsey said easily. "You and Mr. Gunn were pretty close."

"Yes," Wesley said, "we were."

They drove in silence for a while. Lindsey was having a fight with his conscience. Pryce clearly wanted to talk about something, but Lindsey was almost positive that he wasn't the guy to hear it. He'd never been a particularly good listener unless whatever was being said impacted him and his career in some way. His mother used to go through fits trying to get Lindsey to do chores when he was a kid. It wasn't that he minded helping out -- his mind was just always a million miles away, trying to figure out how he'd be able to make enough money to get his mom out of his father's debt.

When she died, she took a big part of Lindsey's soul with her. His mother had died in squalor and his father had soon followed her. The man who'd taken everything life had ever done to him with a fool's grin on his face crumbled after his wife's death and Lindsey left home; never looked back.

Until recently, that was.

Lately, all he seemed to do was look back. He looked back on the two siblings he'd lost as a child, on the third who'd disappeared years ago he feared lost forever. He looked back on the first girl he ever kissed, and wondered how much different his life would have been if he'd married her and taken a job in the small Texas town that he grew up in. Thoughts like that led him to Faith, and how much a part of him she'd become, and he realized it might all be worth it if he could just manage not to screw things up with her.

Atonement was the name of the game. Lindsey had never been very good at that. Being sorry wasn't in his genetic structure. He'd always had a rather ambiguous moral code, but it had been a code of sorts. Don't hurt children. Be kind to old ladies (assuming your law firm doesn't require their entrails for a ritual of some sort). Do anything to keep from becoming your father.

The hardest thing to accept about his old man now was that, given time and distance to reflect, Lindsey had to accept that he hadn't been that bad a guy; that his mother hadn't been all that unhappy. Lindsey had the corner office, the fancy suits, and the beautiful apartment, and every night, he'd had to come home to a scalding hot shower to scrub the filth off. Some days, he missed what it really felt like to get your hands dirty, to spend a day working in the dirt. That was the kind of grime that actually came off if you scrubbed hard enough.

"She doesn't love me, you know."

Lindsey turned his head, a little startled to hear Wesley speak. He'd almost forgotten the other man was in the car with him. He ran over Wesley's words in his brain, trying to make sense of them.

"What makes you say that?" Lindsey asked slowly. Why, he thought, why did I ask? I don't really want to know. I don't =care=.

But the funny thing was, he did. Just a little bit; just enough.

"She likes me," Wesley continued. "We have fun together. But she doesn't love me. And I don't think she ever will."

"I thought . . ." Lindsey tried to think of a good way to phrase it. "I thought she wasn't really . . . all gay." Good one, Counselor, he thought sarcastically. With smooth talking like that, how could you have ever lost a single case?

"I shouldn't have allowed things to progress to this point," Wesley said, and Lindsey thought that he was probably talking to himself. "She was so vulnerable, so confused, and I was just so attracted, so drawn to her that . . . she loved Tara so much, and she needed to move on, but I'm afraid that's all I've been -- something that helped her to move on. She doesn't really want me. For a time, I think, she did, but . . ."

"Because she's gay?" Lindsey said slowly.

"She may be," Wesley said slowly, "but it doesn't really have anything to do with it, one way or another." He sighed. "Willow . . . she loves so totally, so completely. She's given her heart to two people in this life, and I just don't think she's any left to give."

"Tara's dead," Lindsey said bluntly. "I don't mean to be harsh, but--"

"She is dead," Wesley agreed, "but also very much alive in Willow's heart."

Lindsey pulled the truck over. They were here, but he wasn't quite ready to get out yet. "Why are you telling me this?" he asked curiously. "Not that I really mind, I'm just curious--"

"Why I'd trust someone whose tried to kill me and my friends in the past?" Wesley wondered with a smirk.

"Something like that," Lindsey agreed.

"I knew you wouldn't feel compelled to assure me that Willow loved me after all," Wesley said after a moment. "It hasn't been an easy conclusion to come to, and I don't want to believe it just enough that I might be forced to let someone else dissuade me."

"Courage, then," Lindsey said, "for the road you are about to travel." He looked at Wesley until the other man met his gaze. "But, for what it's worth -- I think you're wrong."

Wesley paused for a moment, a pained expression on his face.

"I don't," he said softly, sadly, and turned away.

They opened their doors and got out of the truck, and Wesley paused a moment once he'd gotten a look at his surroundings.

"Aren't we--"

"Gumdrops!" Lorne said as they walked into Caritas. "What can I do for you Ministers of Grace this fine evening?"

"=This= is the guy you know that can 'hook us up?'" Wesley asked, amused.

"We need a mixed basket," Lindsey said.

"Vodka, Bourbon, Scotch, and Tequila?" Lorne said as he went behind the bar.

"And some strawberries and Triple Sec, if you've got 'em," Lindsey added. Wesley gave him a funny look, and Lindsey looked down at the ground, and mumbled, "Faith likes strawberry margaritas."

"I didn't say anything," Wesley said with a smirk.

"Shut up," Lindsey muttered, running his one good hand through his hair.

~

"No," Cordelia said into the phone, her voice harsh and tired, "I do =not= want Carnations. I want the white Spider Mums that I ordered a week ago." There was a pause, and a vein in Cordelia's head began to throb. "I don't =care= if they didn't come in. If there was a chance there would be no Spider Mums, you shouldn't have =promised= me Spider Mums! I gave you money for Spider Mums, and by God, I'll have Spider Mums!" An inarticulate scream of frustration escaped her lips. "Don't you DARE talk to me about MY tone! Your total incompetence is responsible for my mild irritation-- Hello? HELLO? Oh, you did NOT just hang up on me, buddy…"

"Hey," Xander said timidly from the staircase, "is this a private bitch-out, or can former-bitchees join?"

"If you're going to be obnoxious, Xander, you can turn right around," Cordelia snapped.

"Woah," Xander said, holding up a hand, "there's the bitchy Queen C I remember. I =knew= that nice Cordy girl was just a clone or something."

"I'm sorry," she whispered, slamming the phone down. "I just . . . I can't . . . they don't have Spider Mums! They offered me =carnations=! Can you imagine?"

"No," Xander said with a strange face, "few things are as heinous and tragic as carnations."

"I ordered Spider Mums," Cordelia continued as though he hadn't spoken. "When you expect one thing and you start to count on it, you can't just replace it with something inferior, you know? There's a lot of instability in this world -- especially in =our= world -- and it's not a crime to want a few real, fixed things."

"Are we still talking about Spider Mums?" Xander asked carefully, moving to sit on the edge of her desk.

"I had three real, fixed things in my life," Cordelia continued, pushing back from her desk to pace. One of her hands had flown to her hair, and Xander was concerned she would start ripping it out at the rate she was raking through it with her fingers. "I had Angel, I had Wesley, and I had Gunn."

"Forgive me for pointing out the obvious," Xander said, "but you shouldn't be using the past tense with two of those guys."

"Gunn's dead," she said with a hard edge to her voice, "and no matter how much I try to see things differently, Angel took him from me."

"It wasn't Angel," Xander said. "Remember? You guys were always hammering that into my head back in the day."

"I love Angel so much," she whispered, "and he always warned me, he always said that this could happen, that I would have to . . . and I didn't. I couldn't. I had a stake in my purse that night, I always have a stake in my purse, and when he killed Gunn right in front of me I was so scared, I was scared for my life, and for Gunn, but my first thought was . . . Oh, God, Angel's never going to forgive himself for this."

"Cordy," he said softly, "that's not a bad thing--"

"Yes it is!" she hissed. "I cared more about Angel than I did about Gunn's =death=!"

"That's okay!" Xander yelled, moving to Cordelia, his hands tightening around her shoulders so that he could shake her, once. "Angel is your family. I know about finding people to be your family because the one you were born into couldn't care less about you. He's your best bud and your brother and . . . maybe even a little more, every once in awhile?" Xander smiled a little. "Like me and Willow?"

"Yes," Cordelia whispered, pulling away from Xander. "Just like you and Willow. Except . . . imagine Willow killed the first guy to kiss you since . . ."

"Since," Xander prompted gently.

"Since the last guy who kissed you died," Cordelia said, a hysterical edge to her voice. "Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree, huh, Harris? Maybe I'm not mad at Angel. It's not really his fault, right? I mean, I'm the girl with the kiss of death."

"You've totally lost me now," Xander said, confusion knitting his brow together.

"Doyle," she said softly. "He loved me and I didn't realize it until it was too late. Then he kissed me . . . and he died." Her lower lip began to tremble. "Gunn . . . I realized he loved me a lot sooner, but I was too scared to do anything about it. I didn't want to get hurt." She laughed for a moment, then grew very quiet. "I didn't want to get hurt."

"Cor," he said gently, trying to find the words -- any words -- that would comfort her. He came up empty.

"After Doyle died," Cordelia continued, "we didn't have a memorial service. Angel and I just sat around, watching this tape Doyle made just before . . . it was a commercial for Angel Investigations. He was so sweet and wonderful and . . . we didn't have prayers for him or liquor, and he really would have wanted us to get drunk for him, it would have been the best way we could have remembered him, but we didn't, because it was just me and Angel, and then Wesley came, and we had to . . . we had to forget about Doyle, because it hurt too much to remember him." She shook her head. "We always say we'll remember the dead, but we can't, not every day, because we miss them too much that way."

"Have you thought about saying all this to Angel?" Xander said after a tense silence had passed in the wake of Cordelia's outburst.

"I can't say any of it to Angel," Cordelia explained wearily. "I can't burden him with this. He has so much to carry around with him already, I can't--"

"What about what =you= have to carry around," Xander interrupted heatedly. "Now, Dead Boy and I haven't always been the best of friends, but we're getting there and if there's one thing I know about him, it's that he doesn't want to be the cause of any more pain, and Cordy . . . you're in pain."

"I don't want him to blame himself for any of this," she said firmly. "I'll . . . I'll deal, okay? I promise, I'll deal and I'll be okay."

"I don't like this," Xander said stubbornly.

"So what else is new, Harris?" she said cheekily.

~

"What are you thinking?" Angel asked softly, the backs of his knuckles brushing the small of her back in tactile how do you do.

"Shallow answer or deep answer?" Buffy asked, fingering the black silk of the dress she was going to wear that night.

"Let's wade in slow," he suggested.

"My skin is so pale now that I really look dead when I wear black," she answered honestly.

"Dive," he prompted, bringing his arm around her middle.

"The best friends I've ever had have never understood me," she stated quietly, though he detected no self-pity in her tone; only weary resignation. "And now . . . they never will."

"And?" he murmured against her ear.

"And I'm so happy for them," she whispered. "I never wanted them to understand what I was, what being a Slayer meant. And now . . . I never want them to know what being . . . whatever it is that I am is."

"We are," he reminded her gently, tightening his hold almost imperceptibly.

"I'm not sure even you understand completely," she said honestly, because after all, they had promised to be honest now that they would have to fill an eternity together and they did not want to fill it with awkward half-truths and well-meaning betrayals.

"What is it that I don't understand?" he wondered, pawing at her hip until she'd turned toward him. Whenever he was trying to understand all the things she couldn't say, it was imperative he be able to look into her eyes.

"There was a trust placed in me," she said quietly, her head down, great shame filling her posture. "A =sacred= trust, and I . . . I broke it." She looked at him then, her wide blue eyes filled with the guilt and sorrow he would see every day in the mirror, if he could see himself in the mirror at all.

Perhaps some sides of vampirism really were for the best.

"You were a Slayer," he said, after he'd taken a moment to gather his thoughts. "You were sworn to protect human life, to put it before your own. You were a weapon and a tool and in a moment of weakness, you turned your back on your Calling."

"All better now," she said sarcastically.

"But more importantly," he said, tilting her chin up toward him, "you were a girl. And you were hurting so bad, you'd been hurting for so long that you gave up. But you didn't give up for good. It's human nature to fight and claw for existence, Buffy, and that's all you did. And now you've got a chance to make it right. It's not what we've done, Buffy; it can't be. It's what we do that counts."

"Sometimes I can tell you've been around awhile," she said in a teasing voice.

"I'm pretty smart, huh?" he murmured, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

"Yep. Except for when you couldn't figure out how to work the microwave and dinner was still frozen--"

"Well the terminology is ridiculous," he burst out, "how is a rational person supposed to know that you have to do more than hit 'defrost' to thaw a London Broil?"

"The big honkin' 'start' button tips most of us off," she confided with a grin.

"Silence, Woman," he muttered, scooping her off the floor and carrying her to the bed. "You need rest before tonight. You haven't slept all day."

"That's because someone left me all alone in bed so that he could prowl around the hotel like a big cat," she pointed out reasonably as he joined her on the bed.

Resting her cheek against Angel's chest, Buffy threw a leg over his hip, relishing how soft the cotton of his shirt felt against her naked skin.

"What were you really thinking about?" he asked after a moment of silence. His hand cupped her cheek and his thumb made gentle, delicate circles against the tip of her chin.

She smiled because he was the only one who knew her so well. Memories assaulted her, Jenny Calendar and that terrible time before senior year when she'd spent the summer missing Angel and hating Angel and hating herself and trying to forgive everything that he'd done, that she'd done, that she hadn't done soon enough, that she'd had to do at all.

"When you changed," she began quietly, because he always knew when she was referring to the horrific events that followed her seventeenth birthday, "I didn't understand before . . . not really. I tried, I really did, and I forgave you, but when I told you I understood . . ."

"I know." A little smile tugged at his mouth. "I knew. It actually made it easier to . . ."

"Leave me for my own good?" Where once bitterness colored her words, now they were filled with the understanding of a mile walked in too-big shoes.

"Did I do the right thing?" he asked after a moment. "Was it . . . because I've second-guessed it a thousand times--"

"I don't know if it was the right thing," she interrupted. "I don't know that we can ever really decide. But right or wrong . . . I think it was the only thing."

"The only thing." He tilted his head against hers and thought of the lost and the dead; so many, many dead.

"I feel weird," she said at last. "I'm thinking about everything and nothing at once. I'm sad and guilty and at the same time, I'm -- excited? -- because maybe tonight means that things are finally going to . . ."

"Be okay?" he offered.

"Yeah," she confirmed, so quietly, had he not possessed a predator's hearing, he would not have heard it. "'Cause . . .I think my mom would have wanted that. Wouldn't she?"

That soft, pleading tone in her voice, so like that of a child's, was when Angel was always reminded just how young Buffy really was. By the laws of society she was an adult, but when you could measure your life by century, it was easy to forget that the very young were still old, in their way. Especially when they looked at you with eyes desperately needing reassurance. Angel was certain he had looked at Buffy the same way in the past.

"Of course she would," he said slowly. "It's not a matter worth questioning. Joyce loved you, Buffy, loved you fiercely and wanted nothing but the best for you."

"But," she said slowly. "Because you have 'but' face."

"No buts," he assured her with the amusement he always felt at her abuse of the English language. "I do have something else to say, but it doesn't pertain to your mother's wishes in the least."

"All right," Buffy said with a deep sigh, "lay it on me. Lay your big, soul-saving, hero of the universe advice on me."

Angel turned onto his side, took her hands in his, stared solemnly into her eyes, and said in a gentle, serious tone--

"Be okay."

Buffy blinked at him. "That's it? That's your advice? 'Be okay?'"

"Be okay," he said again, squeezing her hands for emphasis.

A moment passed, then another, and she tried to find fault with his advice, wanted to yell that she didn't know how, that most of the time, it felt like it would =never= be okay again. But then she heard a voice in her head, something her mother used to say to her whenever Joyce was trying to reassure her daughter that mommy was just fine.

"I'll be okay, honey," Joyce would say, "because if I'm not, I'll be miserable forever, and that's no way to live your life." Her logic had been irrefutable to a nine-year-old Buffy, and twenty-year-old Buffy was finally beginning to see her mother's words in a new light.

"I'll be okay if you will. You have to be okay, too," Buffy said sternly.

"I will be," he promised, bringing her knuckles to his mouth for a brief kiss.

They snuggled back down into the bed, Angel spooning around Buffy's back, his arm heavy and comforting across her chest. Buffy's lids felt heavy and thick and the chaotic thoughts that had been plaguing her all day began to fade away like a strong gust of wind had blown through the room.

"I can only sleep for an hour," Angel mumbled, burying his face against the soft skin at the back of her neck. "There's so much to do, to get ready before . . ."

But he was already out.

"I'll wake you up," Buffy said, before she, too, drifted to sleep.

They did not move again until Cordelia woke them several hours later. She informed Buffy in no uncertain terms that she would not be wearing that 'drab' black dress to the service, and if they weren't downstairs and ready to get things moving in five minutes, they would start without them.

As ever, Buffy chose to appreciate Cordelia's candor instead of beating her to death.

~

and i was ridin' by  
ridin' along side  
for awhile til you lost me  
and i was ridin' by  
ridin' along till you lost me  
till you lost

~

There were candles lit for each of the beloved dead, plus two in memoriam for those long lost: Jenny Calendar, at Giles' request, and a single burning flame for Alan Francis Doyle; Cordelia did not ask anyone's permission. She merely placed the candle alongside the others, and stated simply, "For Doyle."

No one but Willow spoke. Pretty words for the dead were not exchanged. They sat quietly in small groups while Willow conducted a ceremony that was said to allow the dead passage to the afterlife if it was their wish. She had not shared her experience with Tara's soul with anyone but Spike, before his departure. She spared a moment's grief for the loss of a confidant, but pushed it aside -- perhaps what had transpired between Willow and Tara's soul wasn't meant to be shared.

They were cloistered together in small, connected groups scattered along the floor, forming a circle -- Giles sat to Willow's left, lending moral support, and Wesley sat to next to Giles, a comforting arm around Faith. Faith held Lindsey's hand and, next to Lindsey, Cordelia sat, their legs brushing. Xander held Cordelia's and Buffy's hands and Buffy rested her head against Angel's shoulder. Angel took Willow's other hand, completing the circle.

One at a time, they silently said farewell and tried to reconcile their sorrow and guilt over their losses. Buffy and Angel felt the most obvious guilt, but they were not the only souls in the room that blamed themselves for the tragedies that had befallen the group. Willow, Xander and Giles were filled with doubt that they had done everything they could to help Buffy or, when it became necessary, to stop her. Cordelia wondered if she really was cursed and if falling in love was an activity she should abstain from. Gunn would be alive now if she they hadn't stupidly left the hotel for a date.

Wesley thought that if maybe he'd just read up more, paid more attention, he might have figured out what Wolfram and Hart were planning and seen to it that Angel would have never been unsouled. He thought of his father, and how the old man was right -- he was useless, even at this, what he was best at -- watching. Faith wished she'd been a better Slayer, hadn't fallen off the edge into despair when she did -- if Buffy had had her in this, a sister, a friend, someone who understood her in a way no one else ever would, would things have been different?

Lindsey had spent the better part of the last few months reevaluating life, and his place in it, and so his thoughts were full of Faith and how inadequate he felt at the task of helping ease the guilt he knew she felt. His life had been a series of choices no one forced upon him. It had been a hard life, but certainly not one full of insurmountable odds. He could have been anything that he chose to be, and he chose to be evil. It was a choice made each and every day until, finally, he stopped making it. Faith had tried to explain her decision to him once. All she'd been able to say was that it wasn't a choice to be bad or good; it was just a choice to stop feeling so worthless and alone.

None of them were alone now, and Lindsey was confronted with these people's grief, with their loss, with their love, and against his will, he took it in as his own. For as long as he could remember, there had been a barrier keeping him from people, from their pain, from anything that stood in the way of his ultimate goal -- to be so powerful that all the trappings of his youth would never be able to touch him again.

They touched him now. He had no prospects and no future, beyond the one he couldn't imagine living without the damaged woman on his right. He lived as an unwanted guest in a hotel in need of too many repairs, with too few financial resources. He was one of Robin Hood's merry men, if Robin Hood had been a bloodsucking creature of the night searching for redemption, and the Sheriff of Notthingham a sycophantic mutant of some kind.

And somehow, this woman, and these people, were healing him.

So as they all said goodbye, as they all bid farewell to the people lost to them, Lindsey bowed his head and prayed for the strength to keep making the right choice every day.

In the solemn quiet, they felt great burdens lifting from their shoulders. The guilt wasn't so oppressive, the pain so raw. They were not healed, but they realized, almost as one, that they were healing.

"Um, that's sort of all to the main prayer part," Willow said after a moment of silence had passed, "but I was hoping that you all wouldn't mind if I read something?"

Murmurs of assent were given from everyone, and Willow smiled, releasing Angel's hand so that she could root through her backpack.

"Tara loved 'The Little Prince.'" Willow's voice was much too high, and she cleared her throat and tried very, very hard not to cry. "She loved 'The Little Prince,'" she repeated, quieter this time, staring down at her feet where they were crossed at the ankle, Indian style. The ugly brown shoes she was wearing had been Tara's; the indigo sweater, too. She'd wrapped herself in Tara's things like battle armor, because being surrounded by Tara was the only hope Willow had of surviving this.

It wasn't a final goodbye; Willow had said goodbye to Tara in the Hyperion's kitchen; had felt Tara's spirit warming her own for the last time. This wasn't about goodbye, not for any of them, really. This was about how hard it was every single day to really, truly believe that she would never see her again, never hear her voice, never tell her about the day she'd had, never practice a spell, never steal a kiss, never, never, never . . .

"But I thought it might be appropriate for all of us," Willow said, her voice strong and clear. Some unknown reservoir of strength was possessing her, holding her up, taking control of her vocal cords, forcing her to speak.

"In one of the stars," Willow read from her own neat writing, "I shall be living."((never make love again never make jokes no one gets again never be afraid again)) "In one of them, I shall be laughing." ((never hold hands again never study all night again never research again never be whole again, never)) "And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing when you look at the sky at night."

Willow closed her notebook, bowed her head, and cried. She stared at Tara's ugly brown shoes and wept.

Xander held Cordelia's hand so tight, he nearly cut off circulation. Cordelia stared at Anya's rosebush as though it contained in it all the secrets of the world.

Buffy thought of the way Dawn used to smile on Christmas morning, then wondered what had possessed the Monks to give Dawn such simple joy in something as stupid as chocolate omelets and the obsessive need to record her every thought in a diary. Angel allowed himself to remember the way his sister used to look at him, like he hung the moon, and a time ages ago, before it had all looked so hopeless, when his father gazed upon him with pride.

Giles and Wesley bowed their heads solemnly, looking extremely uncomfortable with the outward displays of grief, even as Giles wiped a tear from the corner of his eye.

Faith looked like she wanted nothing more in the world than to bawl her eyes out, but something held her back. Something always held her back. Lindsey began tracing gentle circles along her back.

Minutes went by and no one spoke, no one moved, beyond the indefinable brush of hands against hands, fingertips against flesh, soothing, healing, aching. Finally, Willow lifted her head and murmured an incantation. The candles around them burned so fiercely bright, she was forced to close her eyes. When she opened them again, she saw that everyone was blinking, staring, mouths slightly ajar, at the center of the circle, where the candles had been extinguished, knocked down, wax and soot mating together to form an image.

"What is it?" Buffy was the first to speak.

"It's 'Death,'" Willow answered.

"Death?" Xander actually gulped.

"It doesn't necessarily mean it's bad, Xander." Wesley was transfixed by the center of the circle. "However, Willow is mistaken -- it isn't 'Death.'"

"No." Giles was also staring at the center of the circle. "It's not. It's 'The Emperor.'"

"I see a Moon," Buffy said.

"With eight rays?" Angel asked.

"Yes." She looked at him hopefully. "Is that what you see?"

"No. I see the 'Sun.'" Angel looked to Willow, almost for confirmation. "They're Tarot."

"Oh." Buffy sounded dejected.

"Does everyone see a different Tarot meaning in the center of the circle?" Willow asked.

Everyone nodded.

"Oh, Goddess," she whispered, "maybe mixing and matching rituals wasn't the best idea."

~

"This is nice." There was a genuine smile on Willow's face as she looked around the darkened interior of the back room at 'Mama's Place,' a small restaurant in Santa Monica.

"It is," Xander agreed, indicating the upbeat attitude everyone in the room was projecting. "People having fun, laughing . . . I think it's what everyone would have wanted." He smiled a little. "Well, Anya would have probably liked a lot of weeping, but I think this is better."

"We'll weep for her later," Willow promised reassuringly.

"I don't know." Xander looked sad for a moment. "I'm not sure I've got anything left inside me. You know?"

"I do," Willow said gravely, "and you do." She looked down at the floor. "I don't think it ever stops hurting, Xan. I just think it gets bearable."

After everyone had calmed down, Willow took out her notebook and asked them to describe exactly what image they'd seen in the center of the circle while Angel sketched. Soon, she'd had nine different cards from the Major Arcana, with absolutely no idea in what order she was supposed to read them in, how she was supposed to read them, or what any of it was supposed to mean.

It had been Giles' suggestion that they put deciphering the cryptic meaning on hold until after the service. They had already conducted a service of mourning; they had a celebration of life to attend. Mama, a robust Puerto Rican woman whose family Angel had saved from a former gang-turned-pack-of-vampires a year before, had offered her restaurant for the night, free of charge.

And what a restaurant it was. Tiny white lights littered the ceilings and along the edges of the stone finished walls. The only other illumination afforded came from small tables scattered throughout, tiny pinpricks of light shimmering from the tops of vanilla scented votive candles. In the corner, a CD player was turned way up, blasting everything from Jimi Hendrix to the Dixie Chicks. Angel and Wesley had paid a visit to the restaurant earlier in the week, detailing just how important it was to honor those they had lost with loud music, good food, and dancing. Mama had gone all out.

Cordelia was trying very hard not to cry. This may have been the day of a funeral, but the night -- the night they had all reserved for celebration. They had moved beyond the weepy stage, and were supposed to be at the letting go and getting on with life part. Which meant that seeing a large arrangement of Spider Mums proudly displayed on one of the side tables shouldn't reduce the bitchiest girl in Sunnydale history to a blubbering mass of mush.

"Xander mentioned you were sort of upset earlier."

No matter how long she knew him, Cordelia was constantly amazed at Angel's ability to always be standing right behind her.

"I was."

They were quiet and Angel moved to stand beside her, both of them looking at the arrangement. Cordelia broke the silence.

"Where did you find them?"

"Somebody owed me a favor," he said simply.

"People in the florist industry owe you favors?" A raised eyebrow displayed her skepticism.

"Friends of the florist industry, maybe," he conceded with a smile. Another moment passed, and he finally asked, "Spider Mums?"

A real, honest smile spread across Cordelia's face. Memory tugged at her icy façade again, and again, she was forced to blink back tears.

"Spider Mums?" she'd asked Gunn, her nose wrinkled as she stared at the bouquet he held before him like an olive branch.

"They remind me of you."

It was their first date, and in her estimation, first dates weren't Spider Mum dates. First dates were definitely one dozen long stem red rose occasions. Such observations made her reply less charitable than it might otherwise have been.

"I'm pale and straggly?"

Gunn had sighed, an incredibly put upon sound.

"If you don't want 'em--"

"I love them," she'd said, taking the flowers and his hand in the same grip, holding both to her heart, the look of contrition on her face the only apology he would ever receive. Cordelia Chase didn't apologize, but she wasn't above showing that she was sorry.

"Gunn liked them," Cordelia said now, glancing at Angel out of the corner of her eye. She opened her mouth to say something else, then fell silent, and they stood together until the silence grew awkward and Angel squeezed her hand, once, then left her in peace.

What had surprised them all was the turnout -- Gunn's crew was there, mostly keeping to themselves, but there, still; Lorne, the demon Host of Caritas came and even sang a few bars for all those gathered. There were demons in attendance, people who knew Angel's crew and wanted to offer condolences; old demon friends of Anya's, including a vengeance demon named Halfrek ("Just call me Hallie.") and her old boss, D'Hoffryn ("Anyanka is deeply missed."), came to pay their respects. A few of the spellcasting friends Willow and Tara had exchanged information with had driven down from Sunnydale. And Anne, who ran the shelter in town, mingled with Gunn's crew.

"Lily?" Buffy had gone up to Anne soon after her arrival.

"It's Anne now," she'd answered with a shy smile. "It's been Anne for awhile. And you?"

"Still Buffy." Her voice was proud. "I think I might stick with it for awhile."

They shared fond smiles and Lorne started belting out 'My Guy' and both women asked a couple members of Gunn's crew to dance, and that was the end of self-imposed segregation for the night. Buffy didn't mention her undead state to Rico, her partner for the moment; Angel had mentioned Gunn's people might not take it too well and the last thing she wanted this evening to regress into was some kind of bigoted cocktail party.

"Watch it, Tarzan." Faith dodged around the loincloth clad lanky yellow demon without spilling the two cokes she carried.

"Nice to see you putting that Slayer grace to good use." Lindsey's voice was teasing, and Faith offered him a grin and one of the drinks.

"So," she said, leaning up against the wall next to him, "how long do you think politeness dictates we hang around?"

"Are we into being polite now?" He grinned and took a sip of his coke. "Must have missed that memo."

"These people are family." Faith stared at his profile. "I may be vile, and I may be crude, but I sure as hell ain't gonna upset anyone today."

"Getting through today was hard." Lindsey glanced at her for a minute, then went back to contemplating the melting ice and soda in his glass. "Harder than I thought it would be."

"Just because you didn't know most of 'em up close and personal doesn't mean you're exempt from feeling sorry they're dead." Faith gestured to the room at large. "People who command a turnout like this -- gotta be a bummer they're worm food."

"You did know most of them up close and personal, though, didn't you, Faith?"

She shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Ain't me that misses 'em most."

"True. But maybe it's your loss I'm interested in."

"Aw, shucks, sweet talk like that might make an ex-con think you care."

"You know I care, darlin'." Lindsey set his glass down on a nearby table and reached down to lightly stroke Faith's jaw until she turned to look at him.

"Yeah." Her voice was husky and she cleared her throat. "I just . . . on the inside . . . I thought about all the people I owed serious amends to. Joyce and Dawn -- they were big time on that list. Hell, even Captain America made the top ten. Though my issues with him, causing friction between him and B, it . . ."

"All seems sort of moot now?" Lindsey offered.

Faith laughed. "I just . . ." Her eyes narrowed.

Lindsey turned his head to look in the direction she was staring. "What?"

"I'll let you know later," she said, but she sounded distracted. Lindsey looked back to where she was staring at, and when he turned back to regard her, found that she was gone.

"That," he said to no one, "is going to get real old, real fast."

At the other end of the room, Buffy watched as Faith edged toward the door. The two Slayer's eyes met, and Faith gave an almost imperceptible nod (Everything's five by five, B; don't sweat it) and Buffy smiled (If you need me, I've got your back) in acknowledgement.

"Was that some kind of Secret Slayer Communication the rest of us aren't privy to?" Angel wrapped an arm around her waist and rested his chin over her shoulder. She hadn't heard him approach, but she wasn't surprised to feel him suddenly next to her.

"Just girl stuff." Buffy turned in his loose hold. "How's Cordy?"

He winced. "She won't really talk to me. She's so caught up in her own head, I think she barely noticed I was there. Which, you know -- kinda for the best?"

"She doesn't blame you."

A wry, humorless chuckle left his mouth. "A part of her does."

"A bigger part of her loves you and understands and accepts," Buffy insisted.

"I'm not worried about that. I know we'll be able to move past this." Angel's expression took on a melancholy slant. "I just also know . . . things are never really going to be the same again."

"True." Buffy traded him melancholy expression for melancholy expression. "Things were never the same with us again, either. After. Any of those times." She laughed, a bit self-consciously. "But hey . . . we're here. And wherever 'here' is, gotta say, I'm not hating it."

"Ringing endorsement, Ms. Summers." He affected a wounded expression, but she heard the teasing in his voice; the gentle affection.

Buffy regarded him for a moment. "Can we talk?"

"We are talking," he noted lightly. However, she could sense the seriousness lingering beneath, the thousand things he didn't say, the are-you-all-rights and the did-something-happens and the can-I-fix-its.

"Alone. We need to talk. Alone."

"So . . . alone, then?" He reached down for her hand. "Buffy, what's this about?"

"Letting go of the past. Making sure we're not carrying old baggage -- old secrets -- into the future with us, after this night."

"This sounds pretty heavy. Did something happen?"

"I was helping Will research the ceremony. I was looking through your books. I found something, wedged between two boring old books. Any idea what I found, Angel?"

"A not-so-boring old book?" It was a question, but it was decidedly rhetorical, and he sighed. "I can explain--"

"I know." She smiled. "But not here. Not with everyone watching. We've had enough public displays of frustration, don't you think?" She squeezed his hand and he squeezed it back.

"I'll tell Wes we'll be back at the hotel if we're needed."

"I'll say goodbye to Giles."

They parted and went in opposite directions. Angel's brain began working overtime, dreading the conversation that awaited him and feeling relieved all at once. He hadn't known how to bring the subject of his and Buffy's past lives up, how to say, "Hey, Honey, by the way, I've got this journal that paints a somewhat sketchy picture of the doomed romance we lived out a few hundred years ago. Wanna take a peek?" when they were in the middle of such turmoil.

The turmoil, at least, seemed to be coming to an end. While they were all still hurting, they were definitely walking wounded at this point, and Angel was confident they were all ready to move on, as far as they could when every step they took echoed memories of the past. Dodging through small groups of people, Angel finally spotted Wesley on the other side of the room, engaged in conversation with Willow.

"Buffy and I are taking off."

"Already?" Willow looked a little distressed. "I mean, good for you."

"Nice cover," Wesley chided gently.

"It's been a long week for everyone," Willow conceded.

Angel laughed a little. "It's been a long year, Will." He kissed her cheek and patted Wesley on the back. "We'll be back at the hotel if you need us."

"Take care of each other," Wesley called quietly to Angel's departing back.

"Don't worry." Willow smiled up at him. "They haven't always, but lately, Buffy and Angel have gotten really good at taking care of each other."

"It's amazing what the absence of fear can do for a relationship." Wesley couldn't stop staring at Willow's profile as she gazed off into the crowded restaurant, seeking, he thought, anyone that was not him.

"Hmm?" Willow turned toward him, a distracted look on her face. "Did you say something?"

Wesley smiled as much as he could manage. "Nothing important."

"I want to go talk to Xander." Willow had already started moving away. "He looks so lonely over there."

It seemed to Wesley that Xander did not look nearly as lonely as Wesley himself felt, but did not think that was the sort of thing he ought to mention to Willow at the moment. Mostly, he feared, because she wouldn't hear him right the first time, and if forced to repeat it, he was likely to scream.

"You look a bit like I feel." Giles offered Wesley a glass of what looked suspiciously like scotch. Wesley took a cautious sip and confirmed that it was indeed very good scotch, straight up.

"Nothing another of these won't fix," Wesley declared, knocking back the glass in a single swallow.

"Perhaps you should take a breath before starting on a second," Giles suggested.

A wry grin answered him. "That =was= my second."

Giles sighed but said nothing further, taking a sip of his own scotch. It was his third, but he saw no need to let such information muddy the waters.

They contemplated the room at large for awhile, watched as Buffy and Angel snuck out the back of the restaurant like a pair of shadows returning to the pale blackness where they belonged. At length, Giles broke the silence with a thought that had been niggling at him for years now.

"Do you find you think about death more since you've begun working with Angel, or less?"

"Far less," Wesley answered without hesitation, and Giles smiled, because it was the sort of thought Watchers might share. "As you well know, the bond between Watcher and Slayer is an extraordinary one, and while it is not identical, I fancy the bond between Angel and I to be comparable. At the Council . . ." He paused for a momentary breath. "They go to such extensive length to make you aware of the perils a Slayer faces, the average life expectancy. They caution you not to become attached, not to develop a bond with your charge, with anyone, really, and so you become consumed with the idea of death as it exists in rational fact. You memorize statistics, note the likelihood of losing people that you care about . . ." A wry smile tugged at his lips as he set his empty glass aside. "You can even begin speaking of yourself in the second person."

"I find the idea of contemplating Buffy's death with any frequency more distasteful than I can express." Giles stared down at his nearly-dry-glass. "I tried very hard to keep a respectful distance, to keep myself from loving her so dearly, and I did quite a good job of it until . . ."

Wesley turned away from him, leaned over the bar and came back with half a bottle of scotch. He refilled both their glasses, took a healthy sip of his own, then looked at Giles with an expectant look on his face. "Until?"

"Her name was Jenny," Giles whispered. "I'm sure -- you read the diaries before you became Buffy's Watcher, so I'm sure you know the story."

"Yes." The answer was clipped and precise. The story of Jenny Calendar was, in fact, one of the reasons it had taken Wesley a very long time, indeed, to trust Angel.

"She was the first person in my somewhat long life that I've ever truly loved and lost. Loving her opened my heart, and when I lost her, I lost the ability to close it again. Buffy became even more precious to me after then and I became determined that, in spite of the odds, and the dry numbers, and the logic of it, that she would. Not. Die."

"And then she did."

Giles snapped his head around to glare at Wesley, but he saw in the other man's eyes, not malice or animosity -- but a deeply felt understanding.

"But it wasn't a solid death," Wesley continued, "no, that sort of thing, you can mourn for. When Buffy died, it was a death of spirit, and she left a fiendish shell behind -- a shell you didn't like, couldn't trust, but somehow, still loved; still supplied you with damnable, useless hope."

"That second person narrative certainly does sneak up on you, doesn't it?" Giles took a healthy sip of his drink.

"We lost Angel for awhile there. I've told you the story. We had no way to reach him, no idea where to begin, but we couldn't truly move on because he was out there somewhere. He was out there and for once, he was the one in need of help." Wesley placed a hand on Giles' shoulder. "Never forget, while you're indulging moments of self-pity and flagellation, that we =did= save them -- both of them -- in spite of the cost. And that perhaps, finally, we are all ready to begin to truly live again."

"I feel as though there's one last ghost to lay to rest first," Giles confessed. "It was such a difficult time . . .there was barely a moment to order the headstone, let alone conduct a proper funeral. I feel as though I've never had a chance to mourn her."

"So mourn her now," Wesley said.

"It's never seemed like the right time," Giles continued. "As though there could ever be a right time to let go of someone so dear . . ." He seemed to grapple for words and Wesley squeezed his shoulder, once, offering strength. With his other arm, he gestured to the grieving but smiling -- sadly smiling, but smiling nonetheless -- people gathered around them.

"There will never be a better time than now."

~

"Gotcha," she whispered close to his ear, causing him to jump.

"Bloody hell," he groused, "don't go sneaking around like that."

"Or what, I'll give you a heart attack?" Just seeing him made her feel snarky.

"Sod. Off," Spike said clearly.

"I thought Red banished you to wander the moors or something dramatic like that," Faith noted.

"I'm still banished." His gaze was drawn inside, face almost pressed against the filthy window that shielded the party inside from the relative cold of the Los Angeles night.

"FYI, Blondie, but banished souls don't traditionally spy on their former residence."

He laughed a little.

"Fat lot you know 'bout bein' banished," he muttered. "That's about all you want to do, is stand around on the outside and press your nose against the glass." He seemed to shake something off with a physical twist of his shoulders. "But that sure as hell's not what I'm doin'."

Faith snickered.

"Could've fooled me."

Spike opened his mouth to say something, then froze. He snapped out of his paralysis quick, though, grabbed Faith and pulled her with him into the darkness. She was about to kick his ass when his motives became clear -- walking out of the back of the restaurant were Buffy and Angel, arms around one another, looking pensive and dire about something. Faith rolled her eyes. She couldn't believe neither of them could sense Spike -- whatever they were thinking about must have been heavy. How unusual for their relationship, she thought with a mental snicker.

Releasing her, Spike gave a shake to his shoulders and continued speaking as though nothing unusual had happened. Faith decided to take pity on him and not mention it.

"Just making sure Red's getting along all right, that's all," he insisted. "Wanker she's with looks to be starting something. Been fixin' for a fight all week."

"All week," Faith repeated slowly. "You haven't been gone at all, have you? You've been skulking around, watching everyone--"

"Shut your hole," Spike snapped. "It's not like that. I was just . . . I just wanted to . . ." He cursed under his breath, something Faith didn't quite catch, and angrily lit up a cigarette. "After tonight," he said calmly after a few, long puffs, "I'm gone."

Faith was torn between feeling sorry for this pitiful creature, and angry that he'd been stalking her new family. While she still didn't completely understand what had driven Willow to banish Spike -- Buffy was, after all, just as culpable for what had nearly went down between them -- Faith also couldn't find it in herself to fault the little witch for her reaction. Mostly because every time Faith looked at Spike, she remembered the intense coupling they'd shared; it was only the last in a long line of sexual exploits Faith would just as soon forget, but the reasons behind it were what really shamed her.

Afraid of feeling something real, of risking her heart big time, Faith had chosen to screw a demon. The part that annoyed her the most was that it hadn't even worked. Staring into Spike's deadly cool blue eyes had only served to remind her of the reluctant warmth she saw in Lindsey's. Lindsey hadn't been a prick about it, and the incident hadn't soured their relationship, but Faith still didn't like to think about it. So, yeah, she'd been okay with Willow kicking Mr. The Bloody out on his ass.

But as she looked at him now, his gaze plastered all over what appeared to be the bickering forms of Wesley and Willow, Faith realized she felt more than shame around Spike; had been driven toward him by more than an imperative to mate and blot Lindsey McDonald from her mind.

"You and me," Faith said as she leaned against the rough brick of the restaurant, "we're a lot alike."

"Sure, pet." He threw his cigarette to the ground and stamped it out violently. "You've got no concept of what I am."

"I know that you're fucking scared. I know that you're lonely as hell and confused and angry that you're so lost you can't remember who you're supposed to be. I know you've got something inside you screaming to fight and maim and kill and that there's something else holding you back from doing it. Me, I had a soul. You've got a chip. Maybe it's different on some cosmic scale, but from where I'm sitting, debating the philosophical bullshit of it is just technicalities."

"Got it all figured out, have you, love." His voice was tired and fed up and aching the way she remembered hers so long ago.

"They'd take you back." Faith let herself move a little closer to him. "Willow was angry, and God knows, Angel still is, but they believe in forgiveness and the good fight and all that shit that seems impossible to you right now -- but they'd take you back. If you asked."

"What's that they say, love?" He seemed to lose himself in thought for a moment. "Home is the place where, when you turn up, no matter what, they've got to take you in?"

"Something like that," she conceded.

"That," he hooked a thumb toward all the people inside, "is not my bloody home. I'm not a part of that world, or this world," he indicated the night sky. "I don't belong with humans or demons or anywhere else. I've got no home and I've got no family and I don't bloody want either. Having loyalties . . . just muddies the sodding water."

"Fine. This isn't your home, your family -- what right do you have playing peeping Billy on their grief--"

"I've got a right!" He wheeled on Faith; got in her face. "Joyce used to make me hot cocoa with little marshmallows in it, and the Niblet . . ." His face almost crumpled, and Faith reached out a hand to him, but he shook her off. "I'm losing my mind," he muttered after a minute.

"What makes you say that?"

"I keep seein' things. Feelin' things. Wantin' things. Things I've got no business with."

"What have you been seeing?" Faith was pretty sure what he'd been feeling and wanting.

"Crazy things," he whispered. He hastily lit another cigarette. "Been wondering if this is how it always was for Dru." He shook his head and exhaled a long drag. "Been seeing the faces of people I killed. Not in a haunty way, just blending into the crowd at night. Been rememberin' things my mum used to tell me. Seein' bloody 'signs' everywhere. Thinkin' about Dru and her fortunes and her sight, the way she would sit and stare at Tarot spread after Tarot spread, like they meant something; like she didn't already have all the future she needed in her head. That sorta crap."

A chill ran up Faith's spine. Ever since she'd had her first real prophetic dream, Faith had been noticing something about herself -- she could read people. Not in an obvious way, and not like a Seer, but she had instincts that she could not ignore, instincts that screamed and plead and implored her one way or another.

And right now, those instincts were howling.

Her question, when it came, was soft and measured.

"Spike, were you at the prayer circle?"

"So what if I was?"

"Did you see anything?" She tried to stay casual. No need to bring him into this whole mess if he didn't really--

"What, you mean the bloody magic smoky spectacle? Yeah, I caught it. Got out of there before you all joined hands and started singing 'Amazing Grace,' or whatever, too."

Faith let out a breath.

"It's cold out here," she said. "Why don't you come inside?"

"Don't feel the cold, love."

"I think you do." She spoke quietly, and though he gave no indication, she knew that he'd heard her. "Take care of yourself, William." She turned to leave.

"Why'd you ask me what I saw?"

Freezing in place, Faith didn't look back at Spike.

"We all saw something." She paused, waiting for a response. "Our futures or some shit like that, symbols in the center of a circle. Everybody got one. Red's gonna start trying to figure it all out tomorrow." There was only silence from Spike. She turned around. "You didn't see one, did--"

But he was already gone.

~

and i'm so sad  
like a good book  
i can't put this day back  
a sorta fairytale  
with you  
a sorta fairytale  
with you

~

"Hey. I'm almost all mourned out, how 'bout you?"

Willow looked up at him with wide, guileless eyes, and Wesley felt hollow. He also felt more than a little drunk, which he would later blame for most of what was about to follow.

"Yes, I'd say I've had quite enough." Knocking back the last of his drink (his fifth), Wesley set the empty glass on a table and turned to regard Willow fully. "How is Xander?" he asked. That sounded polite, didn't it? Not at all like the whining cry of a wounded dog.

"Not bad. He's driving Cordelia home. Buffy and Angel already left, and I think Giles is ready to go, too. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm the only sober one here. Do I need to take everybody's keys?"

"The hotel is within walking distance. Angel's already offered everyone a room for the night. There's no need to play designated driver."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Someone sounds extra-super-grouchy. No more scotch for you, Mister."

"I am not--" Wesley gritted his teeth, because the beginning of that denial =had= sounded a trifle grouchy. With a sigh he felt in his very marrow, Wesley pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry. I'm just . . . I'm tired of this night. I'm tired of missing my friend, and tired of mourning for people I was barely acquainted with. I'm tired of being forced to think about death."

"Death is a fact of life," Willow pointed out reasonably. "It's okay to think about it sometimes."

Shaking his head, Wesley ran a hand through his hair. Even after all that she'd lost, all that she'd been through, she -- and the others, he suspected, all of the others outside Giles, Faith, Buffy, and Angel -- still didn't understand. Hell, he hadn't even understood, not really, when he'd been Buffy and Faith's Watcher in Sunnydale. He hadn't understood any of it until he'd had a real charge, one that he tried so very hard not to fail.

Staring down at Willow's honest, bewildered face, Wesley wondered just when he'd begun to realize that he'd failed her, too.

It was at that moment, he would realize later, that he made his decision.

"Let's talk about the future, instead," he suggested, leaning close to her. "Our future."

"Okay," Willow said slowly. "What about it?"

"Would you like to go away somewhere? Just the two of us? Just for a weekend, even, at a lovely Bed and Breakfast I know up the coast. Give us some time to really . . . know each other."

"Wes, we know each other," she said with a laugh. "We don't have to spend a weekend at some overpriced, highfalutin Bed and Breakfast to prove it."

"I think it would be good for us." Wesley tried to impress upon her how much they -- all right, =he= -- needed her to say yes.

"Maybe," she said at last. "We'll talk about it later, okay? Let's just go home for now. I don't want to think anymore." Her eyes begged him to let her forget about all the things she didn't want to think about, and he wanted to, very much. Wasn't that exactly what he'd been doing for her these past weeks?

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course you can." She tried to laugh. Rolled her eyes a little as Xander and Cordelia walked past them, casting curious eyes in their direction. That's right; he's drunk and she's humoring him and nothing is really wrong at all.

"Are you in love with me?"

"Wesley! Of course I love you."

"That wasn't my question," he said through teeth that were gritted hard enough to ground diamonds.

"Why are you getting so angry?" She laid a hand on his arm. "Look, if this is because I don't want to go away for the weekend, excuse me--"

"Why don't you?" He almost didn't care that his voice sounded so petulant, even to his own ears. "You love me, I love you, why wouldn't you want to spend a relaxing, romantic weekend away with me?"

"I don't know, maybe because you're acting like an ass at a funeral for people we both cared about?" That look was coming over her eyes, match striking rock and sparking.

"You never want to talk about the future." He had ceased allowing her touch, and she had stopped trying to offer it. "Every time I ask where you want to live one day, what you want to do with your life, how you might see our relationship progressing one day, you put me off."

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe -- just maybe -- I don't like to =think= about the future anymore? Because every time I have, every time I plan on someone or something, it falls apart!"

"You'll forgive me if I have some difficulty subscribing to that theory," he noted derisively.

"Actually, I don't think I will." She stepped away from him. "Sleep it off, Wes. If you want to talk about this tomorrow, if you want to apologize, I'll--"

"Apologize?!" Wesley crossed the distance between them. "You've been using me. You've been using me to sublimate the grief you feel over losing the love of your life and I've gotten bloody sick of it! What do I have to apologize for?"

"Hey, Wes, when did I become some kind of punching bag? I must have missed the memo, you know, since I've been using my every waking moment for the last week to plan this service. I'm so sorry if I've neglected to your fragile ego--"

"This has nothing to do with my ego!" Their faces were nearly pressed together and he felt like he was screaming, though his voice didn't sound that loud. "This has to do with . . . with you not wanting me. With you being so confused about your own identity and where your heart lies that you can't even see how goddamned guilty you are being with me!"

"Guilty?!" Willow's jaw dropped. "Why would I be--"

"She died. You made promises to her, and she died. And so now, while you're trying to move on with your life, you only do it in half-measures. You talk about your dreams with me, but you never share the ones that truly mean something to you. You share my bed, but keep your eyes tightly shut when we make love--"

"That is =enough=!"

"It's not! It's not enough, not until you admit--"

"What do you want me to admit so bad, Wes?! Why do you need to hear that I don't love you?!"

Wesley stepped back from her. His face was stricken, but almost satisfied. Willow shut her eyes tightly and began shaking her head in automatic denial.

"There. That's better." He was speaking quietly, almost to himself, his tone pleading. It had to be better now, it had to feel better to know, to be sure . . .

"I didn't mean it like that," Willow weakly. "You just -- you pushed and you pushed, and -- I didn't mean it like that."

"However you mean it," Wesley said finally, "it remains true." He started to walk away, then stumbled a bit. Giles caught him before he could fall.

"Time to go home, old man," Giles said quietly. "I think you've done quite enough damage for one evening."

Xander took one of Willow's arms, Cordelia the other, and they led her, unresisting, from the room.

After he was sure they'd gone and there would be no confrontations in the parking lot, Giles steered Wesley to his car and placed him firmly in the passenger's seat.

"I had to do it," Wesley began babbling as they drove the short distance back to the hotel.

"Did you?" Giles wondered absently.

"No one ever loves me." Wesley's head was resting against the window, his glasses crooked, his eyes closed. "They say they do, but they don't, not really, because I'm not worth it, you know. I'm not worth anything. Totally useless and it would have been better for everyone if he'd never let me out of that closet. Yes. Should have stayed locked up there for . . . Willow." He snapped his head up so suddenly, he got dizzy for a moment. "She's all right, isn't she? I -- I didn't mean to . . . I don't want her to feel badly."

"Yes, good show, then," Giles muttered caustically.

"It's for the best," Wesley repeated again. "She'll see, you'll all see . . ." With that he passed out against the window again.

"Poor bugger," Giles noted compassionately as he pulled into a space across the street from the Hyperion.

He was going to have to find Faith and get her to carry her unconscious former Watcher to his bed. Giles' back wasn't what it used to be.

~

"That's it -- from now on, Wes is laying off Angel's cooking. Drunken idiot nearly gave me a hernia."

"If you ask me, you should have let him sleep it off in the car." Lindsey was lying on the bed in their room as Faith flopped into one of the armchairs, coat and shoes still on. "A stiff neck and being enclosed with your own stink is punishment enough to warn otherwise sane men off overindulging."

"I wouldn't call the little performance Wes put on tonight sane." Faith tiredly kicked off her boots. "Would you mind if I just went to sleep right here?"

Lindsey flashed her a grin. "I would indeed mind, Sweetheart." Lazily rolling off the bed, he strode over to her and knelt at her feet. With his good hand, he took hold of her left foot and rested her heel against his thigh, slowly massaging the arch with his thumb.

Faith moaned and let her head sink back against the chair. "When does everything stop turning to shit?" she wondered after a moment.

"Wish to fuck I knew." He planted a kiss on the tips of her toes and went to work on the other foot.

"The whole way up to his room he kept muttering. Waking up, going back out, over and over again. Shit, the things he said. About his dad, about that Bryce chick he was dating, about Willow. Never knew my poncy ass Watcher had so much dark in him."

"Everybody's got a whole lot of dark in them." Lindsey moved up a little higher, to her calf, and began stroking more than rubbing. Faith purred a little in response. "It's what you do with your dark that decides who you are. From what I can tell, Wes pushed it down until there was nowhere left to stuff it. You and me . . ." Another grin. "We gave it free reign and it tried to swallow us whole." Another kiss to her foot, and another sinful caress followed.

She let him attend to her for a few more minutes, then nudged him gently away so that she could stand. Her coat was tossed back to the chair and she started slowly unbuttoning the tight black jeans she'd finally decided on wearing for the night. (Cordelia's lavender dress was neatly hung back on its hanger in the May Queen's room.) Stalking toward him she unbuttoned the first few buttons of his shirt and let her hand snake inside to give his bare skin a loving pat.

"Speaking of swallowing things whole." Her lips met his in an open-mouthed caress and she felt his sigh against her skin, in the way his chest moved against hers, in the way his eyelashes brushed his cheeks.

Her seduction was going very well until Slayer grace deserted her and she tripped over her discarded boots.

Feeling mortified, she turned her back on him and bent over to pick up the boots and toss them a safe distance away. However, while she was eye-level with the chair, her eye caught on something sticking out of her coat pocket. A sense of inevitability stole over her and she reached her hand out toward it as she stood. Before she read it, somewhere inside of her, she already knew what it would say.

"Don't worry," Lindsey crooned in her ear, wrapping an arm around her waist. There was laughter in his voice, and part of her that wasn't distracted noted that she didn't mind him being amused at her clumsiness one bit. That had to be progress. "I won't tell a soul." She didn't answer him, and the next time he spoke, she heard a trace of concern in his tone. "What is it, Darlin'?" He peered over her shoulder at the small item she had in her palm -- magic marker written on the cardboard insert from a pack of cigarettes.

"'The Hanged Man,'" Lindsey read aloud.

"Where was my coat?" Faith asked quietly.

"In the coatroom. With mine."

"I left it on a chair." Faith stared down at the piece of cardboard in her hand. "I left it on a chair because I was so cold I didn't want to take it off right away when I came in after . . ."

"After?"

"Remind me to give this to Willow in the morning."

"Something you want to talk about?"

Faith smiled brilliantly, turned and bestowed another long, deep kiss on his surprised mouth. With the tips of her fingers she brushed his short hair back taking a few precious moments to look deep into his ocean blue eyes. There was home all around her now, but none of it felt as real as this man's eyes looking back at her with love.

"We've talked a lot tonight. I wanna do something else."

"I'm nothing if not amendable to the wishes of my partner," he said. He did that sometimes, slip from redneck to slick lawyer and back again in the bat of an eye.

She was really starting to like him.

"Come on, Cowboy. Take me to bed.

~

"Can you believe him? Him and his being drunk and disorderly and just -- =mean=! He was just mean!"

"So I've heard," Cordelia muttered. She shared an eye roll with Xander as Willow continued to angrily pace around her room.

"Anything I can do?" Xander asked helplessly, casting a concerned gaze back and forth between Willow and Cordelia. It almost felt like high school again, being torn between his best friend and his girlfriend--

Xander shook himself. He did not just think that. Not now, not yet, not =ever= . . .

"Xander?" Cordelia was looking at him strangely. "You look like you're having an aneurysm."

"What? Why? No! Fine. I'm fine." He turned. "I'm just gonna go get you guys some chocolate -- girls like chocolate when they're upset, right?"

Cordelia stared after Xander as he fled the room. "What's his damage?"

"Chocolate," Willow said morosely, coming to an abrupt halt in the middle of her floor. Cordelia hoped she didn't hurt anything, the way she just crumpled down like that. "This whole thing with Wesley started because of chocolate. I blame chocolate."

"That," Cordelia noted as she carefully sat down across from Willow, "is blasphemous. Don't blame the chocolate because you couldn't control yourselves."

"I'm just so tired of hurting." Willow rested her arms on her bent knees and let her head hang in between.

"Me too." Cordelia sighed and leaned back on her elbows. "Any suggestions?"

"I could do a spell." Willow glanced up at Cordelia from behind a curtain of red hair. "I could make it so that we never fall in love again, never hurt again."

"As tempting as that sounds, it also happens to sound a lot like something Xander would have done back in high school." Cordelia looked at Willow for a moment, sizing her up. "I know we've never been particularly close, Will."

"That's not true," Willow automatically denied.

"It is." Cordelia smiled as much as she could manage. "And it's okay. I mean, it's not like we all have to be best friends forever or anything. You and Xander and Buffy -- you were always enough for each other. And I understand. Because that's how Angel, Wes and I are. Which brings me, oh so subtly and tactfully, to my question -- are you in love with my best friend?"

Willow stared down at the floor. "I am not in love with Angel; Buffy would kill me."

"Oh, nice try," Cordelia said with false approval. "Points for absurdity. Try again."

"I thought I did until he went all psycho tonight."

"A little bitter," Cordelia said, "but the fact that you won't look me in the eye is worth a deduction."

"Yes!" Willow snapped her neck up and looked Cordelia in the eye. "Yes, I'm in love with him, yes, yes, I love him, he's made my whole stupid world okay again and I love him! Are you happy now, Cordelia?"

"I'm far from happy, Willow," Cordelia said stiffly. "What I don't understand is why the two of you aren't happy, given how clearly in love with you he is."

"I . . ." Willow swallowed deeply. "I never told him. Not really. And he's right. I do -- I hold myself back. I . . ." A tear spilled down her cheek. "I loved Tara with everything I had inside of me and when she died I don't know how I kept putting one foot in front of the other. I just don't know how. And then there was Wesley, and he was so sweet, and shy, and gentle . . . and he was just so =there= for me. It didn't seem like he needed anything, and I guess . . . I needed him to not need anything from me." A look of horror crossed the witch's face. "Oh, God, Cordy, no wonder he thought I was . . . I wasn't, I swear, I wasn't!"

Cordelia sighed. "I believe you, Will. But I'm not the one who needs to hear all this." She sighed and stared down at her hands. "And I would never betray a confidence a friend placed in me, but -- I think you need to know that this isn't all your fault."

Willow scooted a little closer to her. "What?"

"I don't know how much Wes has told you about his past . . . but he's talked to me a little bit, to Angel a little more, I think, and . . . things happened to him. With his father, with the Council, the way things ended with Virginia -- he's got a lot of pain inside of him, Will. A lot of pain and this thing that makes him think he can't share it because no one will ever care enough to listen." Cordelia reached out and took Willow's hand. "The best thing that you can do for him is to let him know that it's okay to need you. If you're not sure about the way you feel about him, then you need to tell him--"

"I'm sure," Willow said quickly. "I swear to God I'm sure." She angrily swiped at the tears on her cheeks. "I've just been so manic this week, and so . . . and then he brought it up after -- when we were -- and I just couldn't." She made a frustrated sound. "I just didn't want to plan my whole life with him out, so that if something happened, it wouldn't all get ruined, because if there's nothing there to ruin in the first place . . ."

"Yeah," Cordelia with a heavy sigh. "I know all about rationalizing yourself out of happiness."

The two women shared something that was as companionable and close to friendship as they ever had before. Xander broke the moment by his somewhat loud arrival.

"Chocolate," he announced, weighed down with candy bars left over from Halloween. "Not quite as good as sex, with twice as many calories, but at least no one kicks you out of bed afterward."

Cordelia stared at him. "Your life makes me sad."

Xander joined them on the floor and quirked an eyebrow at Cordelia.

"Imagine how it makes me feel."

~

"So," Buffy said as she glanced to her right at Angel's decidedly naked form, "that didn't really so much resemble talking."

Angel quirked his mouth at her and sighed. Turning onto his side, he brought one of his hands to gently rest over her abdomen, noting, dispassionately, the way it did not move up and down with her breathing.

They had gone back to their room with every intention of having a long, drawn out talk about everything they hadn't talked about yet, and a few of the old issues that were always between them.

But, as so often happened, things did not go according to plan.

He hadn't meant for anything to come of such a simple gesture; he'd just noticed that some of Buffy's hair had fallen from the upsweep she'd put it in and he reached a hand out to brush it behind her ear. Then it had occurred to him how much he loved her hair down, and his other hand had come up to remove the clip that held the mass of tangled gold captive. His fingers stroked through it as it came down, and she'd leaned into his touch. It seemed only natural to kiss her and when she kissed him back it became even more natural and rational thought was blotted out right along with any considerations about what they really ought to be doing instead.

The dress she'd worn tonight had shredded beneath what he'd been sure was the gentlest tug. She didn't seem to mind the loss, and ripped what was left away, going to work on his clothes as they tumbled back onto their bed together. They furiously came together again and again, moved to soothe and comfort, to love and take, give and pull until they reminded themselves and each other that no matter what they were about to discuss, or what came before, or what came next, there would always be what came after, and this, and the way his hand held her lower back and the press of her lips to his breast and the feeling of safe, warm, home, with every unneeded breath they took together.

"So," Angel said, moving a gentle thumb against her belly, "how about them past lives?"

"I'm mad at you." She laced her fingers through the hand resting against her stomach.

"I know."

"I'm mad at me, too."

He furrowed his brow at her. "Why?"

"Because you're not the only one who was keeping something pretty huge to themselves this time." A forlorn sigh tore its way through her body. "When are we going to stop being so afraid of just telling each other everything?"

"We're getting better," he said in their defense. "It's just -- hard -- to stop protecting you."

"I know the feeling." She brought his palm to her lips briefly before returning it to her abdomen.

"And," he added, "I wasn't sure what it all meant. When it first came to my attention, I was still pretty much a basket case." He paused for a moment. "Care to enlighten me about whatever it is you've been clamming up about?"

"In a minute -- you first. How did you find that thing in the first place?"

"Lindsey."

"Seriously?"

"He liberated it from Wolfram and Hart before he left. Studied it, apparently."

Her nose wrinkled up. "I don't like the idea of him knowing so much about . . . I mean, they were =us=, Angel. No one but us should know so much about -- us."

"You've read all of it, then?"

Buffy nodded. "Once I started, I couldn't put it down. A real page-turner," she joked lightly.

"For all we know, it isn't even accurate," Angel pointed out. "Maybe we're getting worked up over--"

"It's accurate." Buffy turned onto her side to face him fully, her head propped up on her upturned arm. "My turn. Didn't you wonder, just a little bit, how I =knew= it was us?"

Angel shrugged. "I just assumed you . . . I don't know, felt it. When Lindsey told me, when I held it in my hands, I just -- knew -- that it was true."

"Angel, I'm very glad you've got such good intuition, because what I get is strange, disjointed dreams that paint an unclear-yet-vivid picture."

He sat up straighter. "You've been having dreams?"

"For a little over a week now." She sat up against the headboard next to him. "I don't know why I didn't just tell you. At first, I didn't think they meant anything -- being the Slayer, I've had some weird ass dreams. But then, it seemed the closer we got to the service, the more I . . ." She shook her head. "I should have told you."

"There's a lot of that going around," he noted quietly.

"What does it mean? What are we supposed to do? They . . . Angel, the journal is more clear than my dreams, but there's still so much we don't know. And -- does it even matter?"

"It matters. Buffy, why would we be confronted with all of this, now, if it didn't matter?"

She let her head rest on his shoulder. "I don't know. But I guess we should talk to Giles and Wes."

"Tomorrow." He pulled her down to lie flat with him, their heads sharing a pillow, noses almost touching, and let his hand sift through her hair again until she closed her eyes, his name and something left unsaid the last whisper on her lips.

He continued to stroke her hair long after she had fallen asleep.

~

way up north i took my day  
all in all was a pretty nice  
day and i put the hood  
right back where  
you could taste heaven  
perfectly

~

It was afternoon before Buffy and Angel were finally able to bring the information they had to Giles and Wesley. Giles seemed most interested that Buffy had retained some sort of ability to psychically dream and Wes looked pained at the thought of doing anything beyond moaning quietly. Both Watchers, however, immediately bent to the task at hand and the rest of the hotel's inhabitants divided their skills between two groups -- the Watchers' team busily researching past lives and any mention of the Soul Blessing, and Willow's Tarot hunt.

The first week, everything was fairly awkward.

Cordelia did her level best to avoid working in close proximity with Angel, and Xander, out of some sense of loyalty to his -- whatever she was -- did likewise. As far as he was concerned, Angel has a lot of people around him -- Buffy in particular -- and the one person Cordelia had left that she truly counted on was Wesley, and to Xander, Wesley looked like he had his hands full just trying to take care of himself, let alone Cordelia. That meant the burden of caring for Queen C. fell to him, and he was still marveling over a Cordy that willingly allowed herself to be vulnerable.

The day after his inebriated ranting, Willow walked up to Wesley and began, in her Willow way, to apologize and ask if they could start again. Wesley, in his Wesley way, closed down and folded inward, barely sparing her the courtesy of looking at her as he told her, in no uncertain terms, that it was better this way, and do, please, have a good life. Willow was so hurt she hadn't spoken to him in days and forced Faith to relay any messages it was imperative they communicate. They both began to close in on themselves, Willow, because she had been hurt so many times, and Wesley because he could not stop hearing his father's voice in his head. Consumed with guilt and remorse, they folded in on themselves and though Angel tried to talk to Wesley, and Buffy tried to council Willow, both remained horribly adrift.

Lindsey and Faith, in between studying various forms of Tarot (all they could say for certain so far is that the Tarot symbols everyone saw were definitely from the Rider Wade deck) began discussing just what, exactly, they planned to do with the rest of their lives. As easy as it was to do so, neither felt comfortable imposing upon the Hyperion forever and Faith had begun to feel a niggling sensation in her belly -- the Hellmouth was speaking to her. And, she began to remember, it currently stood without a guard. By her mind, Buffy and Angel had the city of pretty well in hand -- but given the usual grab-bag of evil mayhem Sunnydale usually sat on, Faith was beginning to itch just thinking about all the vamps and demons having run of the town.

Giles overheard Faith discussing her decision with Buffy and Angel, and an idea began to take seed in his mind. Faith would need a Watcher, someone that she could trust, someone that would be in tune with her mood; someone who would not be afraid of her, as a new Watcher from the Council might be. Giles spent hours watching Buffy, observing her interactions with Angel's family, with Angel himself. Willow and Xander would be staying; that decision had already been made. But Giles -- Giles felt that perhaps he was not needed here. Wesley was their Watcher, the keeper of the books, and despite how very badly he wanted to stay by Buffy's side, he knew the only true decision was to go where he was most needed.

Buffy kept focusing on her dreams. She would sit quietly in a corner, never having been good at research, and try to call to mind more specifics from them. The images were jumbled, the face of a girl, dark hair, dark eyes, that Buffy felt an intense longing for. It was a slightly uncomfortable sensation; uncomfortable and intriguing. The more she thought about her dreams, the clearer that woman's face became to her, the more intense her dreams became. Angel hovered close to her without becoming suffocating and she was grateful for his solid, beloved presence.

By the second week, everyone was getting into the rhythm of research.

Wesley and Willow had become civil and no longer required Faith as an intermediary, for which Faith was grateful. There were many things that Faith had not been cut out for in this life, and she was the first to admit that diplomacy was one of them. Willow attempted several overtures, all of which Wesley steadfastly rebuked. He did not, it soon began to occur to Willow, particularly care if she did love him and that knowledge confused and pained her.

"Please," he said to her finally, "just let it be. It's for the best."

"Why are you so afraid?" She reached a hand out and enfolded his tense palm inside it. "You don't have to be afraid of me. I'm really not that scary."

"I'm not afraid of you." He brought her hand to his lips. "I'm afraid for you."

That was the last he spoke on the topic, and Willow decided not to broach the subject of their personal relationship with him until this most recent crisis had passed. The fact that this would give her time to mount a more successful offensive battle plan against his defensive fear was a happy coincidence.

When Giles told her he would be going back to Sunnydale with Faith, Buffy smiled, hugged him, and told him she expected them all back for Christmas and birthdays and any other excuse they could think of to sneak away from the Hellmouth for a weekend or more. Giles was both relieved and disappointed by her easy acceptance of his eventual departure from her everyday life. Yet another part of him was immensely proud of her maturity. Her reaction was all the validation he needed that his decision had been the right one.

As soon as they had a moment to themselves, Buffy flung herself into Angel's arms and wept. He let her cry for a few minutes, then dried her tears and asked her if she was all right now.

"I'll miss him so much." She smiled, and this time she meant it. "But it's not like I'm alone."

"No," he agreed, tracing one of her eyebrows with the tip of his finger, "it's not."

The dreams grew more intense. Buffy became an active participant in them. In a particularly intense installment, she awoke panting and aroused, the memory of the dark haired woman's phantom touch warming her cool skin. The ache she felt beneath her flesh was as vivid as anything she had ever felt, and it itched and pulled at her skin until she woke Angel and all but attacked him. From his response, she was fairly certain that he hadn't minded.

Angel found numerous small ways to help Cordelia without infringing himself upon her. He refilled her coffee and then let Xander bring it to her; he tuned the radio to her favorite station then scurried away from it as though it were on fire; he took her favorite sweater -- ruined in a fight -- to an all-night alteration shop and let Willow present the good-as-new garment to its owner. He continued in this vein for some time until Cordelia intervened.

"I know it's you," she'd said in no uncertain terms.

He felt more uncomfortable than he had wearing a tuxedo at Buffy's prom.

"I don't know what you mean." It was lame. He realized that.

"You don't -- Angel, you don't have to keep . . ." Tears sprang to her eyes. "You can't make this up to me."

"I know." His voice was laced with tears he didn't feel he had the right to shed. "Cordy . . ."

"Just stop it, okay? Because you're making me feel guilty and I hate that."

"I can't stop taking care of you. I don't know how."

Cordelia sighed. "Fine. Then if you're going to do stuff for me . . . =you= do them, okay? Because sooner or later I'm going to get used to you hovering around like a mother hen and we'll be okay, but not if you keep skulking around like a shadow. Deal?"

"Deal." He looked at her for a moment. "You haven't eaten today."

She grinned. "There you go."

When she wasn't planning to locate the cause of, and decimate, Wesley's apparent icy calm exterior, Willow continued her research on Tarot. The traditional uses were abundant and useless; the order and number of the symbols had no meaning, and no practicality in any conventional reading. And the unconventional methods she pursued proved fruitless. Soon, she would have to broaden her search, which she was not looking forward to -- once she moved out of the realm of the occult, it meant the answer could lie =anywhere= and the sheer breadth of information to sift through was daunting, even to Sunnydale's most effusive nerd.

Feeling useless in the search, Faith began looking through old neighborhood maps of Sunnydale, trying to figure out where she and Lindsey would live. It never occurred to her that she'd never officially asked if he'd be making the journey back with her; she'd just assumed that he would. Luckily, he assumed the same, and began giving her input on their future home. Giles began making calls, trying to see if he could renew his lease on the Magic Box. Buffy decided that if you couldn't beat 'em, join 'em, and began looking forward to the frustrating dreams, because when she woke up, with Angel by her side, they ceased to be quite so frustrating.

Everyone was growing restless, a lack of information beginning to dampen their spirits.

Then, in the third week, Giles found something.

~

"So you're telling me that after three weeks of exhaustive researching, your big cure for my chronic dreams is to give us both even more chronic dreams? Giles, are you sure you're getting enough sleep?"

"You only grow more amusing every day," Giles noted dryly as he, Wesley, and Willow positioned candles, incense, and several herbs Buffy couldn't really pronounce around the room.

Buffy and Angel were standing aside, watching as three of their friends prepared their bed for the spell Willow would cast. Buffy felt a bit surreal watching the man she considered her father fluffing pillows on the bed she shared with her lover.

"It's actually really cool," Willow noted with an Even-though-I'm-a-kickass-wicca-I'm-still-a-nerd grin on her face. "Your subconscious soul's memory is always with you -- you just can't access it. Because you've already got some latent psychic ability, Buff, you're already beginning to tap into it. And, because the Soul Blessing has already sort of activated your past life awareness, with a few shakes of incense and an incantation, you and Angel should be able to actually step inside your soul's memories and take a peek around."

"Well, that's essentially it," Giles conceded, "but you won't -- you won't have control over what you'll see and feel."

"Will it be random?" Angel looked like he was feeling a bit surreal, himself, as Giles made their bed with fresh sheets.

"No," Wesley said as he monitored the positioning of the candles Willow was lining up on the dresser, comparing them to the helpful diagram in the book he held. "The strength of the memories will greatly influence your ability to experience them. The stronger the recall, the more vivid the imprint on your souls, the clearer you'll be in the moment."

"You'll essentially be dreaming about a life you can't remember," Giles concluded. "And when you wake up, these dreams should be like any other memories you currently possess."

"With maybe a little extra added weirdness since Buffy's never been a guy before, and Angel's never been a girl. And not just any girl, but a Slayer." Willow glanced at them briefly. "You haven't, right? I'm not forgetting some Hellmouthy badness?"

"Not that I can remember," Angel noted wryly.

"Let's see . . . ah, yes. Here. Drink this." Giles removed two small bottles from his pocket and handed one each to Buffy and Angel. They silently toasted each other and downed the contents in a single swallow.

Buffy made a face. "What was that? Some kind of mystical mood enhancer?"

"In a manner of speaking," Giles said evasively.

Angel licked his lips and sniffed the now empty container. He narrowed his eyes. "Giles!"

"I thought it would help," the Watcher said primly. "If you're not relaxed all this preparation is for nothing."

"What did I just drink? It wasn't anything gross, was it?" Buffy was looking worried.

"Um, Buff?" Willow was grinning a little. "When you drink blood, can you really judge 'gross' anymore?"

"Trust me," Buffy said sternly, "there's gross, and then there's =gross=. Tell me I don't have to go scrub my tongue."

"Don't worry," Angel assured her. "It was just something you can order at Caritas." He shut his mouth tightly, but Buffy kept staring at him and he cracked like a walnut. "It's a magically enhanced liquid that assures lack of inhibition and calming properties without the impairment of good judgment."

"You're big plan for success is to get us =drunk=?!" Buffy turned to regard Giles.

"Yes, and you shall behold my success in the morning. Wesley, Willow, are we finished?"

Willow murmured a few words in Latin, then blew out one of the candles. "Ready."

"Try to relax," Wesley advised gently as he patted Angel on the shoulder. "Fall asleep within the next few hours and you should have a very productive night."

"Yay productivity," Buffy muttered as Wesley closed the door behind them.

"Hey," Angel murmured into her ear as his arms went around her waist. He let his hand drift a little lower on her abdomen than propriety normally allowed and she arched against his seeking fingers. "I've got a surefire way to relax."

"I thought that's what the demon liquor was supposed to do," Buffy pointed out with a slow smile.

"And just why do you think Lorne put it on the menu to begin with? He's a lover, not a fighter." His voice was a lascivious chuckle.

Buffy gasped, half in outrage that Giles had apparently seen fit to slip them both demonic Ruffies, and half because Angel had just abruptly sank his fangs into the side of her neck. His fingers drifted a little bit lower and she moaned.

"I wouldn't call what I'm feeling right now relaxed," she panted.

He retracted his fangs and gave her a long, loving lick.

"Just give me time, baby."

~

"Hereafter, in a better world than this,  
I shall desire more love and knowledge of you." -- William Shakespeare, As You Like It

~

He felt as if he'd been waiting forever.

The Watchers had summoned him yesterday, which was an unusual occurrence in and of itself. He was one of the first vampires to be transformed by the foreign magicians, and as such, was deemed a test subject -- and the Watchers, he had learned quickly, wanted nothing more than to keep unstable elements as far from the Slayer as possible.

Twenty years had passed since he had regained possession of his soul; twenty long years and he had never been asked beyond the walls of the Council. Certainly, he'd never been asked to Germany, the current residence of the Slayer due to a Hellmouth opening just outside Hamburg. And most certainly, he had never laid eyes on one of those precious, doomed, chosen girls since the restoration of his soul.

Until yesterday. Until Philip Waterston told him what the Council required of him.

"You are the oldest of your kind," Waterston said. "And living near a Hellmouth, this child needs all the assistance she can garner."

But she did not look like a child when he first laid eyes upon her. Her hair was black like ebony and she radiated strength and power. There was an ancient quality to her; in her eyes, he saw centuries laid out before him. It shook him deeply and he had to look away from her, but he could not do so for long. Had Waterston not called him into an office to explain the situation fully, he wagered he would still be looking at her now.

Instead, he waited for a chance to see her again.

A door opened on the other side of the room and he sighted Waterston who was speaking to someone behind him. A flash of black and he saw her face and gave leave to his last shred of hope; he had not imagined her beauty or the feelings she sparked to life within him. Waterston signaled him over and he came.

"John Thomas Moore," Waterston said, "I would like you to meet Natasha, the Vampire Slayer."

"A pleasure," John said, giving an elegant bow.

"Yes, well, you've both been made aware of the new arrangement; I'll leave you to get acquainted. Mr. Moore, I trust you will be able to find your new accommodations?"

"I'm sure I'll manage," John agreed, his eyes never leaving the Slayer's face. Once they were alone, he spoke again. "I don't wish to be imprudent, Natasha, but I was never given your last name."

"I have no last name." Her voice was cultured and proper; it belied her features, which he would have pegged as Hungarian, or Russian. "When you have cause to address me, I would prefer you refer to me as 'Miss.' I have been with the Council since infancy. I have no memory of my parents or my life before I was told the very real possibility of becoming the Slayer existed. My ancestry is Russian, but as you've no doubt noticed, my upbringing is reflected in my speech patterns. I've no patience for anything outside my sacred duty. Further, I do not trust you and I do not understand why the Council has seen fit to outfit me with an assistant, as I have never had cause for assistance in the past. I work alone; I am alone."

He quirked an eyebrow at her. "Anything else?"

She frowned. "No. That is all."

"Good. May I speak my own mind as freely, Miss?"

"Of course." She almost looked contrite. "I did not mean to imply that you should hold your tongue for my sake, Mr. Moore."

"I'm your partner," he said flatly.

Now, she looked confused. "What?"

"You've expended a great number of words informing me that I am your assistant. You're mistaken. There are dozens of Slayers in Training, each assigned a vampire to work with, to study with, and, if necessary, to fight alongside. The Slayer before you worked with a vampire and, as I understand it, he was with her until her death; it is a close bond, fighting and dying beside someone. As much as your very nature must inspire you to resist it, it is imperative that we trust each other, Miss, or we're already as good as dead."

A long moment past between them while she studied his face, in particular, he thought, his eyes. Then, she did something he had to wonder at: she smiled, and the sun came out for him for the first time in nearly two hundred years.

"Perhaps I am glad to meet you after all, John Thomas Moore."

~

"How old are you?" he asked her the first night they left the compound together, walking the streets in the snow; looking for monsters.

"Twenty," she answered. "Nearly the oldest Slayer on record."

"And what does the record say of the oldest Slayer?"

"That she was twenty-two when she died; a Master took her."

"Do you think of that often?"

"Only every night when I close my eyes and a few hundred times during the day." Her voice was low, an endless breadth of sorrow. Her eyes were made for the rest of her, dark and lost and full of inexhaustible strength.

"I know that we do not know one another well yet," he began hesitantly. "And I know that you do not yet trust me."

"I am beginning to like you," she offered at his side. "There is that, at least."

He paused and waited until she halted as well. "I am quite confident that a day will come when you do trust me; when you know me and understand that, despite what I am, I am a man of my word."

"Why do you tell me these things?" she whispered.

There were nearly five feet between them, but somehow, he felt as though he stood at her side, her small, strong hand enfolded within his.

"I tell you these things," he said quietly, "so that you will one day believe the promise I am about to make."

She laughed. "What sort of promise do you plan to make me, John Thomas Moore? Do you promise to slay the dragons in my path?"

"Nothing so fanciful," he assured her. "But I do promise that in this life or any other, I will see to it that no harm shall come to you. And if harm should find you, then so shall I. And if you should be lost, I will walk the ends of the earth until you are found again."

For a moment, she was speechless, standing in the cold night air, bits of snow catching in the blackness of her hair.

"If that is not fanciful, I wonder at what you would deign call so," she finally said with a voice that ached.

"Perhaps I'll tell you one day," he said as they began walking again, "after we've celebrated you're twenty-third birthday."

~

"How old are you?" she asked him several months into their partnership.

It occurred to her that she never had before and it seemed wrong not to know something so basic about the person she was closest to in the world. She did not like to examine too precisely why she felt closer to him than even to her own Watcher, preferring to accept the surface obviousness of the situation -- she spent more time with him than anyone else. What was that old saying? Familiarity bred companionship. Except she knew very well that wasn't the old saying at all.

"If you chart the time I've spent on this earth, I'm one hundred and ninety-three years old."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "How old do you consider yourself to be?"

"Forty-nine," he answered without hesitation. At her prompting look, he continued, "I was twenty-nine when I was turned. I've existed for a hundred and ninety-three years, but I've only lived for Forty-nine of them."

"Did it hurt? When they restored your soul?" It was something she'd thought about frequently but always felt uncomfortable just coming out and asking.

"Not in the way you mean," he answered simply.

There was so much that was gentle about him. She always felt hard and old and alone; he seemed, despite the considerable burdens of his life, to be so alive, so trusting in the world. His hair was nearly black from years out of the sun, though he told her that, once, it had been a fair brown. His features were strong and delicate all at once and she knew instinctively that more than one demon had been lulled by the seeming elegance of his beauty.

Over the course of five months, they had slain seventy-nine vampires together and eliminated twenty-four extraneous monsters John knew the proper names of and Natasha filed under a simple mental category -- evil, and added them to a sub-category -- dead. One night several weeks before, Natasha had come dangerously close to being killed and before she could work up a good fright about it, her face had been covered in ash and John had been standing above her, wooden stake thrust forward. He had taken her hand and helped her up and asked if she was all right and generally fussed over her until she agreed to have the gash on her forehead looked at by one of the Council's doctors. It was nothing, but something inside Natasha flared up as John hovered around her and snapped at the doctor to be gentler; no one had ever cared about her before, not for the reasons John seemed to.

Natasha was only valuable because she was the Slayer; to John, she felt as though she were valuable to him simply because she was Natasha.

Something came over her as she watched him walk beside her, lost in his own thoughts. Remembering a time before he was souled? He would ask her, many years later, what made her do it, and she still wasn't sure. The only answer she had in her heart was that, in that moment, she could do nothing else.

His gasp against the soft touch of her lips was more gratifying to her than anything could have been. Genuine surprise meant that he had not expected her to kiss him, and the fact that he did not pull away surely meant that, even though she had not kissed a man before, she must be doing something right.

A few seconds passed, and she felt his mouth move against her own. Then, his hands found purchase in her hair and she realized that she had been mistaken, because what he was doing then, that, was a kiss, and what she had been doing before was but a prelude.

They held each other in the snow for hours, and when they returned to the Council's rooms, Natasha felt a pang the likes of which she had never known at parting from him. Letting go of him was difficult, but she comforted herself with the knowledge that he would be waiting for her tomorrow, ready to train for a few hours before they patrolled. She drifted easily asleep, a smile on her face.

When she woke, thoughts of him immediately filling her mind, she wondered how long she would be able to bear even such short separations as the length of a night.

~

"Shh," he whispered to her as she moved beneath him. "You mustn't--"

"I can't," she whispered back, gasping. "I didn't know -- I never imagined it could--"

He kissed her and swallowed another of her moans as she wrapped her muscled legs around his waist. They rocked together in slow, sweet abandon, and when moments of lucid thought made their way into his fevered brain, he reflected that this was the first time he had ever made love to a woman. He had been chaste and waiting for marriage before he had been turned, and the lecherous encounters he experienced as a demon certainly could not be classified anywhere near the rapturous sacrament he experienced inside and surrounded by the woman in his arms.

After the restoration, there had again been no one. The newly souled vampires had formed friendships, but most were wary of deeper relationships. John had been wary; he was still wary. But, when confronted with the depths of his devotion to Natasha, wariness was overridden.

"I love you," he murmured as she scratched his back with her strong fingernails. "I love you," he repeated as she drew blood and arched her neck.

Tears filled her eyes and overflowed across her cheeks. He felt his own damp with moisture. The sheets whispered secrets as they moved and stilled, became frantic and gentle.

Later, as they rested together, her head pillowed against his breast, he played with the ends of her hair.

"Happy birthday."

"Thank you." She looked up at him. "Twenty-three. Does that mean you're released from your promise?"

He did not have to ask what she referred to.

"My promise had no expiration." He pulled at her until she rested full length atop his body. She folded her arms over his chest and rested her chin atop them. "I will protect you as long as you live in this life, and follow you into the next."

"The next." She laughed. "I've read some of the Council's texts on reincarnation. It sounds like a load of tripe, if you ask me."

"Perhaps," he allowed. "But I've lived a very long time and seen things that defy explanation. I have looked into the eyes of a woman no more than a child and seen an ancient soul looking back."

"Whose?" she asked curiously.

"Yours," he confided with a smile as he traced the strong, proud lines of her face with the tip of his index finger.

"Hmph," she muttered, turning her head to rest her cheek over the spot where his heart once beat. "If you insist on subscribing to such a fanciful belief, I shall have to indulge you. What shall our next life be like, then?"

His smile kissed the top of her head. "Blissfully normal," he pronounced. "Perhaps we'll own a farm somewhere and raise a gaggle of children and live out our days in as much peace as a house full of screaming, happy babes will allow."

"I wonder sometimes -- does it scare you?" She rested her hand against his cheek and let her thumb make gentle, delicate circles over his chin. "Me being what I am, and you being what you are -- does it worry you when we're together that one day nature might overcome affection?"

"No," he answered easily and firmly. "I believe in us. I believe we're stronger than even the very tenants of biology." She smiled and snuggled her cheek against his chest. "And, if pressed, I'm fairly certain I could take you in a fight."

"Bastard," she laughed, thumping her fist against his chest.

"Hush, Woman," he whispered, pretending to wrestle with her until he hovered above her again and he remembered this was how all of this had started; an innocent birthday celebration, and he'd teased her, and she'd called him a bastard, and they'd somehow lost all their clothes and ended up pressed against one another.

"I love you," she said. "And I know we should be cautious, but I fear I have lost the knack for cautiousness. I feel as though I would die if I could no longer hold you."

"Then there will never be a need for your death," he swore as he bent his head to hers for another kiss, and another, and another, and another.

~

"Natasha!" He was exasperated with her, but he was laughing. She delighted in provoking such opposite reactions at once.

"Come on, my love," she urged, "it's the first snow of the year. It's bad luck if we don't play in it."

That was patently untrue, and she knew he knew it, but she also knew he would do anything for her and this was one of the few pursuits outside of taking to his bed that brought genuine joy to her heart. It was a month before her twenty-sixth birthday and the Council was beginning to show concern that she had lived this long. The Slayers in Training were restless, and Natasha knew they resented her for not doing her part and dying already so that they might fulfill their own destinies.

The Council was as aware of the relationship John and Natasha shared as they could be without actually acknowledging its existence. Philip frowned at them every time he saw them and for the most part, they were left alone as long as they kept Hamburg safe and relatively evil-free.

Over the years, the Council had sent them on long journeys out of country to look into the demon population there. John had a carriage outfitted especially for him to keep the daylight away (he still preferred travel overseas by freighter) and together, they had traveled to Paris, England, and, once, Russia. Natasha had never seen her homeland before and John had held her as she cried at the beautiful countryside bathed, as it had been when they visited, in snow.

"You know how I love the snow. You know it was the only enjoyable part of my youth."

She grabbed his hand and pulled, but he held fast. Natasha knew that, to him, she was still very young and that he worried over her more than he should.

"They let me make snow angels," she said leaning close to kiss him. "Let's make angels in the snow." Another kiss, and she tugged him a little further. "And catch snowflakes on our tongues." More tugging, more kissing. "And make love in the snow."

"It's too cold for you," he cautioned, though she could already tell that she had won.

A brazen smile flitted across her mouth and she dragged him outside.

"I'm Russian, remember? We don't feel the cold."

~

"This is unacceptable! Genevieve Randolph might have been a Slayer one day, and she died for one of those -- monsters!"

John winced from his place near the door. Vampires were not welcome inside the Council meetings, but none of the Watchers had yet truly begun to comprehend just how refined vampire hearing was. Inside, he could smell Natasha, worry and fear beginning to overpower the aroma he normally associated with her.

"Genevieve was brave," Natasha said firmly. "And Marcus was her friend--"

"That thing is a friend to no one!" the Watcher insisted. "The Council agreed to the foreign Magicians' outlandish gambit over a two decades ago in order to preserve the lives of our Slayers. We did not do so to give them additional reasons to die! If Genevieve had been the first, such a thing might be overlooked, but she was not."

"What are you talking about?" Natasha sat up straighter in her chair.

"The Slayer before you," another Watcher continued, "died protecting the vampire assigned to her. He fell in battle minutes later and so the matter was not given due consideration. Both were deemed casualties of war, and in war, decision making is impaired. Genevieve and Marcus were on a routine patrol. They were taken by surprise and she laid down her life for a demon."

"A demon who had risked his life for her dozens of times before," Natasha maintained.

"You speak out of turn," the first Watcher informed her coldly. "You would do well to remember that it is by our allowance that you are given voice to speak here at all."

"I was under the impression that I was given voice by being older by a great number of years than any other Slayer on record." Natasha sat forward angrily. "Perhaps it is I who am mistaken."

"Enough of this," the second Watcher declared. "Obviously, the situation with the Souled Vampires has grown beyond our control. The girls are becoming attached to these creatures. The matter requires our attention."

"What sort of attention?" Natasha asked.

"The Slayer will be removed from this proceeding," the first Watcher instructed. Three Watchers approached Natasha.

"Try it," she warned them softly as she stood.

John entered the room. "The Slayer is required with a matter in the library," he said.

Natasha met his eyes and nodded once, briefly, before leaving the room with him.

"Attached!" she growled once they were out of earshot. "Of course we've grown attached. They take everything from us, our families, our sense of ourselves, and tell us our lives are to be dedicated to the cause. Of course we're going to identify with the only other creatures on earth who've a prayer of understanding us!"

"You've got to calm down," John told her. "Making a spectacle of yourself isn't going to accomplish anything."

"It might accomplish something if I began throttling them," she said darkly.

"You're a sexy wench when you get that look in your eye." He meant every word, but he was hoping to distract her.

Judging by the look she gave him, he was largely successful. She allowed him to take her arm and they went for a walk to the library, where the most pressing matter awaiting the Slayer's attention was a volume of poetry John had found and thought she might enjoy. It was there, bent over a large tome, that Philip Waterston found them over an hour later.

Vampire and Slayer looked up from their reading at his strained, conflicted expression. Finally, he told them that the Council had reached a consensus that would be voted on within the next week. He was not at liberty to share their supplementary findings. He was, however, made privy to a rather large nest in Berlin. He would be officially giving them a two-week clearance to leave the compound, travel to Berlin, and extinguish them.

He kissed Natasha's forehead before he left and wished them luck.

As they left late that night, they both knew that they would not return.

~

The Council's mandate was swift and absolute: Souled Vampires were an abomination, a plague that was infecting the minds and judgment of the Slayer and future Slayers. Natasha's defection was not noticed, as Philip Waterston had hoped, for over a week. It gave she and John enough time to make their way out of Germany and scatter someplace the Council would be hard pressed to find them.

Waterston was executed a few days later. The Council named treason as the charge. Natasha learned of his death a year later while she and John were in Denmark destroying a nest of Fyral demons who had been tormenting local shopkeepers.

Souled vampires were given a choice -- surrender, willingly walk to deaths that should be nothing but relief, and those deaths would be swift and painless. Run, avoid the inevitable, and death would not come so peacefully. The vampires who ran were very old, and, the Watchers new, the very old were quite adept at sensing when death was near; often, even the greatest marksman would be unable to deliver a killing blow with a bow an arrow, and hand to hand combat proved fatal -- for the Watchers.

And so, they rediscovered older magic and brought forth righteous vengeance for the beasts that dared corrupt the heart of a Slayer -- they called it Killer of the Dead. Arrows tipped with the poison need not strike the heart -- any direct hit ensured an eventual kill. An elite subsection of the Council was formed -- they would one day be known as black ops, but in this time, they were called Killers of the Dead. Armed with bow and arrow, they traveled the countryside, notebooks filled with the names and descriptions of ensouled vampires. Cryptic communications came by messenger on horseback from assassin to assassin with new orders, new destinations from the Council. Mostly, the vampires were easy to find, and easier to kill.

All but one.

For one traveled with the Slayer. At first, the Council hesitated to fire upon the girl -- they were here for her protection, after all, and she could not be held accountable for the manipulations of the vampire. But soon it became clear that she was unsalvageable and the order was given -- a cryptic message delivered to all Killers of the Dead: "For every one that dies, another is called."

They found them some three years after the initial decree was made; three years of running and hiding, living and loving, fighting and hoping. It took three shots before one finally hit John in the leg; he was distracted by a child that had wandered into the middle of a war zone in Prague. Natasha let out a horrified wail when she realized what had happened. The Watchers attempted to extract John then, but she fought them and they managed to escape. Orders were given that the Slayer must be eliminated; a new girl had to be Called.

But John and Natasha had disappeared without a trace.

~

"It's all right," she whispered, grunting with the effort it took to bear his weight along with her own. "We're nearly there."

"Where are we?"

She inhaled deeply and bit her lip to fight back tears. He had been asking her the same question practically since they left Prague. He had moments of great lucidity, but they were fewer now. She feared for him like she had never feared for anything.

"Romania," she said again. "There's a woman here. A healer. She can help you."

John grunted in acknowledgement and they continued on. The horse had given out a mile ago, refusing to walk another step while carrying two riders, and John could not stay upright alone. Now, Natasha was fighting against the oncoming day -- only an hour or so, she thought -- and the almost overwhelming desire to simply give up. To lie with him cradled in her arms, to feel the sun take him, and to find an end of her own soon after.

But she could not -- would not -- just give up. She had to save him.

They arrived at the small cottage the man in the gypsy village had described to Natasha a few minutes before sunrise. Natasha nearly wept as the grizzled face of an ancient looking woman finally answered the door to cease Natasha's frantic knocking.

"You have to help him," Natasha pleaded in a voice that cracked from days with little water.

The old woman narrowed her eyes. "You bring this creature to me and ask me to help him? He is an abomination!"

"No!" Natasha yelled, using the arm not supporting John to bar the door from being slammed in their faces. "He's not! You must believe me, he is -- he's --" Her mouth opened and closed as she searched for words to adequately describe him.

The old woman's eyes narrowed further. "He is everything to you," she exclaimed in a soft, wondrous voice.

"Yes," Natasha whispered as she lost the battle with her emotions and tears began to leak out of her eyes. "Please . . ."

Slowly, she nodded. "I invite you to bring him here." She indicated a small straw mattress in the corner. "I am called Lysandra."

"Lysandra. My name is Natasha, and his is John. Please, I beg you--"

She held up a hand that called for silence and Natasha closed her mouth immediately. Instead, she went down on her knees and began gently stroking John's face, letting the stubble from his jaw abrade her fingers. It reminded her that he was still alive when he gave no outward sign.

Soon, Lysandra began to hum, low and with no discernable tune. Her hands hovered centimeters above John's chest, then moved to the wound on his leg.

"I keep giving him blood," Natasha whispered, more to herself than anything, "but it's never enough, it never helps."

"Nothing will save this one," Lysandra pronounced finally.

Natasha began shaking her head. "No -- you're wrong! He can't die, I won't let him die!" She licked her lips and glanced from John to Lysandra. "Can't -- there has to be something I can do. I know deep magics exist, there has to be something I can offer -- myself! A Slayer's life has to be worth something, enough to . . ."

"Child," Lysandra said softly, compassionately, "you do not realize what you wish to bargain with."

"Yes I do." Natasha no longer cried. She had seen a hesitation in Lysandra's eyes and knew there was a way.

"You speak of your life as though it meant nothing to you."

"I speak of his life," Natasha said strongly, "with the surety that without him, mine is meaningless."

"No life is meaningless, Child," Lysandra said calmly. Her wise old eyes looked closer and something like a smile pulled at her toothless mouth. "Yours least of all. But then I see that his is the same." Her wizened old hand moved over John's chest to his forehead and she let her palm hover over his eyes for a moment. "Yes," she whispered quietly to herself.

"What?" Natasha felt a chill run up and down her spine. "What do you see?"

"The blood of the holy is his only hope," was all she said in reply.

"Holy." Natasha shook her head. "I don't understand -- a priest?"

Lysandra snorted. "Priests. They believe themselves to be holy, and perhaps they are, but they know nothing of true divinity. The passion and spirit in a woman's soul, in her heart -- A Slayer's, most of all -- that is holy." Lysandra placed her hand over Natasha's heart. "You, child. You are holy. Your spirit, your calling, your soul."

"I'm not," Natasha denied immediately. "We're -- we're dark and tools of the fight. That is all we are. That is all we are ever meant to be."

"So young," Lysandra murmured. "So very, very young, yet. You will see. You will both see. Save your vampire, for I have looked into the future and it is meant to be so. Save him, for his spirit, his calling, his soul is yet holy, too. You will see. Oh, Child, you will see."

"I don't understand," Natasha whispered helplessly.

"And so you are not yet meant to," Lysandra said kindly. From the pockets of her dress she produced a small bottle. "I had a vision earlier that a very sick man would require this; I did not imagine the man trapped within a monster you would bring to my door. Have him drink this. It will make things easier for him."

"What is it?"

Another of Lysandra's ancient smiles transformed her face.

"It is a vision of what has not yet come to pass."

~

"Angel. Angel."

Natasha looked down at John worriedly. He had been mumbling about angels since she had given him Lysandra's potion. She wondered at her own willingness to trust the old gypsy, but also knew all her decisions of late had been borne of desperation.

"No angels for you yet, my love," Natasha murmured as she brushed his hair away from his forehead. "One day, but not yet."

His eyes came open suddenly and he stared at her in horror. "No," he whispered. "No."

"It's all right," she tried to soothe him. "Don't you see, this way one of us will live--"

"You," he gasped out. "You should live--"

"They will never stop looking for me." She squeezed his shoulders tightly. "They would hunt me the rest of my days, because until my death comes, no Slayer will be Called. But you, my love -- you they believe as good as dead already. For you there will be a chance. And, John, I'm just not strong enough to go on without you." She laid her head against his chest and wept. "If it weren't for me," she sobbed, "you wouldn't be dying now."

"Not true," he whispered. "Was already dead before . . . brought me to life . . ."

"You brought me to life," she promised him. "You'll never know -- you'll never understand what it was like for me before I had you in my heart."

Beside him, she had placed a small dagger and she used it to cut a vein in her wrist. His eyes widened at the quick and precise slice she made and he shook his head as she brought her hand to his cheek. With her thumb she traced the gentle circles that had soothed him in the past against his chin, and, before he could protest, pressed her bleeding wrist to his mouth. He fastened his lips around her and drank deeply, his demon uncontrollable in the force of his hunger and sickness.

She had seen him like this few times before. John was adept at keeping the demon at bay, and his generally good temperament kept him on an even keel. The wild, unleashed passion she felt in him now was comparable with the emotions he allowed her to see and feel when he made love to her. Soon, her wrist was not enough; she felt the beast howl within him and he pulled her against him. She bared her neck and gasped as he bit roughly into the flesh there, holding her writing body firmly atop his.

For as long as she had the strength, she stroked his face, her thumb to his chin and jaw that worked with effort to drain her. It was the cessation of her touch that finally broke through to his mind and banished the demon to the background again. The sudden press of her back to the cloth she had laid for him on the ground was one of the last clear sensations she felt.

"No, no, no," she heard him whisper harshly.

"You have to go on," she croaked. "If you don't live, if you don't try to do good, then it was for nothing. I was for nothing."

"I can't," he whispered. "I-- I killed you--"

"The old woman," she forced out, "the old woman said it was meant to be. It was meant to be, we were meant to be, all of it."

"How can I live my life without you?" He sounded so afraid, so genuinely unsure that he heart broke.

"I will find you," she whispered and he gathered her into his arms and pressed his wet face against the crook of her neck. "In this life harm has come to us both, and we have been lost. You must walk to the ends of the earth for me. You must walk the earth until I find you again. Do you understand?" She wasn't sure that she understood. She only knew that he had to.

"Yes," he whispered, though he wasn't sure that he did; only that she needed him to.

"I know that one day, I will again be granted the grace to look upon you with love and know that you are mine." He heard her heart pound twice, furiously, then still.

"I swear it," he whispered into the still warm skin of her neck. Then, slid back from her body, huddled into the corner of the worn-out shack she had led him to, and howled.

~

Three days later, John finally wandered out into the night carrying her body in his arms. He found a cemetery not far from the place of her death and dug a grave with his own two hands. Out of wood he carved a headstone in the shape of a cross. It left him with burns for days, but he did not so much as flinch.

At the top of the grave marker, he carved her name as he saw it -- Natasha Moore -- and laid her to rest. Below her name, he left a simple message for the future:

'She lives in me.'

He left Romania and swore never to return.

~

Buffy was disoriented, ready to wake up and share with Angel the memories that had solidified when she realized that she was not John anymore, but was not yet herself, either. She felt afraid -- desperately so -- and had no idea why. Opening her eyes she saw that she was in a small home, a fire burning in the hearth. She tried to move and realized that her wrists and feet were bound. Her mind began blending with the body she had become a part of and she realized that this girl, too, had once been her. But she did not understand -- John had died, she knew, a few years after Natasha, and Angel's soul had been reborn in Galway almost immediately after. They had no other past life to relive together.

The girl that struggled with her bonds on the floor had a family, a large one that loved her. Her father, especially, would lay down his life for her, and Buffy was momentarily saddened by all that had lacked in her relationship with Hank Summers.

Voices came from the door, and Buffy froze, recognizing them, but not understanding the significance. Surely this was too bizarre a thought to contemplate. It was depraved and horrifying -- and yet . . . It held the sort of twisted irony everything in their lives seemed to hold.

"Can I take off this blindfold yet?"

"No."

"Can I take off something else?"

"After I give you your present."

Buffy tried to speak, tried to say something, but found that she was gagged. Funny how she hadn't noticed. She renewed her struggle with the bonds that held her; it was not Buffy's consciousness controlling the scene before her, but the girl's. Buffy wanted to ease her fear, but knew there was nothing -- save the promise of what this life's sacrifice would yield for the future -- she could do. But finally -- finally -- things were becoming clear in Buffy's mind. They were connected, she and Angel, on the most intrinsic of levels; he had died so that she could live in the last life; in this life, she would balance the cosmic scales.

And Buffy knew, suddenly, that the girl did know, did understand, in some way, what this meant before her death; that when the veil between this world and the next faded into another, she remembered, for an instant, who this one was, and knew, in a moment of clarity, what he would one day become, and as she died, she knew that it could not be much longer now; not long at all.

"Happy birthday, Angelus."

~

Rats and garbage and stink. This, then, was familiar, even if it had been years. Angel felt almost like himself again, though the spirit of the girl he had been lingered beneath his skin; the spirit of the Slayer he had been. The sun was bright and he shied away from it. He was in a car, but the stink was no less oppressive; he was as aware of it as he was the harshness of the day.

But then it all began to fade away as his vision lit upon a Goddess walking down stone steps. For a moment, he knew her, his dead heart thumping, his soul screaming with the need to run to her. He knew the day would burn him, and so he was silent and still.

He was not a fanciful man and he did not believe at love at first sight, but he had no other frame of reference for this -- feeling -- that overcame him. When night fell, he followed her; watched her. He sensed, already, that he would quickly become accustomed to this. A spark in him grew brighter, and for the first time, he felt what he had allowed himself to become out of guilt and pity; wondered at how he could have wasted the last twenty years feeling sorry for himself.

And, as he watched her cry through her bedroom window, watched tears of frustration and confusion leak down her cheeks, his soul howled a new old song and Angel came alive again.

~

When most people thought of the waiting room between this life and the afterlife, the automatic, human reaction was usually to conjure up an actual waiting room, complete with uncomfortable plastic chairs, outdated magazines, and screaming children.

In actuality, the waiting room in limbo more closely resembled the Gateway for Lost Souls, done up in columns and grape leaves, with the added bonus of great lounging cushions and chess boards and libraries with books never seen on earth for the dead, the lost, and the waiting to amuse themselves with for whatever chunk of eternity they had.

The people in their not-quite-corporeal bodies that littered it, however, were not so unfortunate as to wear togas and glitter. They were dressed in the clothes they died in, whatever debilitating wounds they received at the times of their deaths present, but not paining. They carried the marks of their death as tribute to their lives; the scars of war bravely fought and inevitably lost.

"I still can't believe I have to wear this Backstreet Boys t-shirt forever. I mean, they are =so= over. Can't I at least upgrade to Avril Lavigne?"

"Dawn, upgrading to Avril is a poor choice. I've lived a long time, and I can assure you, you'll wish Avril dead soon enough. Pick something old and timeless, like the B-52s."

"Anya, stop helping. Dawn, try not to look down at your t-shirt and look on the bright side -- at least your shirt isn't decorated with various mysterious ancient filthy kitchen stains for all time."

"And we can't ever let them know we're here? Not even like, long enough to say 'hey, sis, I'm over you sucking me dry'?"

"Nah, sorry. Rules are rules, y'know?"

"That's a load coming from you, Alan Francis."

"At least I'm not an uptight gypsy whose own clan won't even have her."

"You two, I swear, you're worse than the girls when Dawn borrowed one of Buffy's sweaters without asking."

"Hey, the blonde chick told me I'd be able to go back and visit Cordy someday."

"Y-y-you will. Just not . . . not yet. Not until . . ."

"Not until what?"

"Not until the end."

"I dislike being dead."

"It's no picnic for the rest of us either, sweetheart."

"I also dislike that woman engaging Xander in a blatantly sexual manner."

"Cordy ain't engagin' no one. I =just= died."

"So you and her were . . . you know . . ."

"That lewd gesture's 'bout to get you my fist in your face, almost-angel or no."

"I'm just wonderin' what it was like with her. I checked out before I got more than a kiss."

"Then it looks like you and me got somethin' in common."

"I'm beginning to wonder if you've lied to all of us. You said I would get to see Xander again, you promised this black gentleman a reunion with Cordelia . . . The Irish guy is the only one being honest. You probably don't even know what's going on."

"Hello, been dead for close to four years now. Was the first of the group to eat it at the hands of a recently de-souled friend. I think I know just a little bit more about the inner-workings of the interim than you, a teenage girl--"

"Actually, a former-eleven-hundred-year-old demon."

"Thank you, Tara."

"Put a sock in it, all 'a ya."

"Why? It's not like we've got anything else to do."

"With the intel Tara had, the Tarot objective is strategically sound. Willow's smart, she'll figure it out."

"Thank you, Riley."

"And if she doesn't, we'll regroup and try that whole haunting plan Anya came up with."

"I'm not even sure if we =can= bloody haunt them. The rules aren't exactly crystal clear, if you catch my drift, Captain America. Blondie's witchy woman Tarot card mumbo-jumbo isn't going over too well at the moment. I mean, the possibility exists that there's just nothing we =can= do but wait."

"That's the first intelligent thing you've said all eternity."

"You know, I'm really glad Buffy went all fierce and fangy. I was dyin' for some interesting company that didn't make my interim a living hell."

"Don't worry, you may be headed there yet."

"Children, stop fighting."

"Yes, mother," seven voices chorused sarcastically.

"Fine, but I'd like a straight answer. You spiritual types =never= give a girl a straight answer, not a thousand years ago, and not now. Just how long, exactly, are we expected to wait in this simplistically constructed version of limbo?"

"As long as it takes," came the curt reply from the gypsy.

"What are we waiting for?" the youngest of their ranks asked timidly.

The gypsy's answer, when it came, was filled with ethereal joy, and longing.

"The rest of our party."

~

"Buffy, calm down."

"I will =not= calm down!" She continued to pace the floor of their room -- naked -- running frustrated hands through her hair. "I =killed= you. Am I destined to spend every life killing you somehow?"

"At least in this life I've gotten pretty good at coming back," he offered weakly.

"Not. Funny."

"It was a little funny," he muttered to himself. Frankly, watching her pace around was starting to turn him on. They'd only been out of the dream state for a few minutes now and the magic was still working double time on his system. The urge to tumble her into the bed was almost overwhelming.

"What does it mean?" Buffy was practically fuming. "I mean, what the hell? What great cosmic force decided we were supposed to live these incredibly tortured lives, reincarnation after reincarnation? Is that as deeply screwed up to you as it is to me?"

He waited for the perfect moment, and just when she passed close enough to the bed, he grabbed her around the waist and pinned her to the mattress with his body.

"Angel," she half objected, half laughed. "We have to--"

"What? Talk about what it all means?" He brushed the hair back from her face. "Buffy, I know what it all means. As much as I can."

"Really? Care to share with the rest of the class, Angel?"

"Everything," he said quietly, "that I have ever felt for you is not wrong. I didn't ruin your life and I didn't take anything away from you. You wouldn't be better off if I'd stayed away from you and no matter what the future holds, I don't have to give you up; not ever." He laughed quietly and tried to project what he was feeling into the kiss he delivered to her mouth. "In my whole, long life," he whispered against her lips, "that is all I have ever needed to know."

She kissed him back and realized, for the first time, exactly how much Angel worried over her happiness, how much he regretted his vampirism when she'd been human, how much he questioned the decisions he made. It was a cautiousness, a lingering sense of wrongdoing that was solely the responsibility of his vampiric nature, something she now knew she had shared with him when she had been a vampire in love with a Slayer.

And it was freeing, securing his big body on top of hers with arms and legs and the force with which she kissed him. It was like letting a pair of long-lost lovers reunite as she took him inside her body and she felt John's love aside her own as she kissed the lips of her lover and stroked the lines and angles of his body. They had made love multiple times in the past three weeks, and every time, she only wanted him more. Instead of slaking her thirst for his body, her hunger deepened, and finally, she understood why.

John's hunger had added to her own in recent weeks, had sensed how close he was to reaching Natasha again and had clawed and ripped at her very subconscious to force her to =remember= him. Angel's touch on her body was heated and intense, and she felt Natasha's desperation to reassure herself that John was all right, that he still existed, still lived in some way.

Their coupling was quick and powerful, and Buffy found that she was shaking as Angel pulled her body to lie atop his. Her hand found purchase on his chest, and she extended her index finger outward to trace little circles on his chin slowly, soothingly.

"I'm disappointed in my soul," she said at last, a deep sigh punctuating the statement.

"How's that?" Angel asked, his fingers brushing up and down her spine like feathers.

"You knew," she said. "On some level, you just knew me, the second you saw me, you recognized that it was -- me -- and it . . . it took me longer. I mean, I was attracted -- hello, have you seen you? -- but . . . I don't know if I felt it until -- later."

"I'm not so disappointed in your soul," Angel said easily. "After all, I had a lot longer to get acquainted with mine than you did and it had been something of a point of contention with me. Besides, you had a whole world to obsess over, along with a pretty scary Calling and a whole new town. I wasn't anything before Whistler showed me my future, Buffy. And, I guess, as it turns out, my past."

One of his hands slid up the side of her ribcage and began teasingly caressing the side of her breast.

"Aren't you ever satisfied?" she groused with mock exasperation.

"Never," he assured her.

"It makes me sad to think about them," she said. "How they ended. It makes me hurt for them, and not just because they were us."

He smiled gently, and pressed a kiss against her forehead, and her eyelids drifted shut in bliss, so he kissed them, too.

"I don't know. If you look at the big picture . . . they didn't end so tragically, did they?"

She looked up at him and kissed him, because she could, and placed her hand over his heart, feeling raw all over. But in a good way.

"So what you're really trying to say is -- they lived happily ever after?"

Chuckling, he pushed her back into the bed again and hovered above her, his hands framing her face.

"Maybe not happily ever after," he conceded, thinking of all the pain, all the loss they had faced; all the pain and the loss that no doubt lay ahead. "They were happy, yes, but, Buffy . . ."

"What?" She kissed his nose, his chin; ran her foot along his calf and let her hands stroke up and down his back.

"They lived." He gave her an Eskimo kiss and smiled at her with his eyes. "That's the good part. That they lived."

And the rest of the night was sweat and souls and bliss.

~

and i'm so sad  
like a good book  
i can't put this day back  
a sorta fairytale  
with you  
a sorta fairytale  
with you

~

END Book II


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